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AUTHOR: 


FARRAR,  FREDERIC  W 


TITLE : 


SAINTLY  WORKERS 


PLACE: 


NEW  YORK 


DA  TE : 


1878 


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r 


248 
F 


Farrar,  Frederic  William,  1831-1903. 

Saintly  workers:  live  Ix^nten  lectures  delivered  in  St.  An- 
drew's Ilolborn,  March  and  April,  1878,  by  Frederic  AV.  Far- 
rar ...     New  York,  E.  P.  Button  &  company,  1878. 

xvi  p.,  4  1.,  i5j-207  p.    ly. 


J_Christlan  biography.     2.  Lenten  sermons.    3.  Sermons  English. 
I.  Title.  ^ 

32— 33G29 


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DELIVERED  IN  ST.  ANDREW'S,  HOLBORN, 


MARCH  AND  APRIL,  1878 


r  ■ 


LUiRAin 


BY 


FREDERIC  W;  FARRAR/D.D.,  F.R.S.,/ 

Cation  of  Westminster^ 

Chaplain  in  Ordinary  to  the  Queen^ 

Rector  of  St.  Margaret' s^    Westminster^ 

Late  Master  of  Marlborouj^h  College,  Hulsenn  Lecturer,  and  Fellow  of 

Trinity  Coilege^  Catubriti^f  , 


ISiEW  YORK 

E.  P.   BUTTON   &  COMPANY 

1878 


DEDICATORY    LETTER. 

My  dear  Canon  Westcott, — 

Ten  years  ago,  when  I  had  the  happiness 
of  being  your  colleague  at  Harrow,  you  preached 
in  the  School  Chapel  a  sermon  which  exercised 
a  very  powerful  influence  not  only  on  my  ima- 
gination, but  also,  I  hope,  by  God's  blessing,  on 
my  views  of  life.  At  the  request  of  some  who 
heard  it,  you  printed — although  you  did  not 
consent  to  publish — that  sermon.  But  even 
after  the  lapse  of  ten  years  I  should  not  require 
the  printed  page  to  recall  the  outline  of  the 
thoughts  about  "  Disciplined  Life  "  which  you 
then  wished  to  impress  upon  your  youthful 
audience. 


20707 


VI 


DEDICATORY  LETTER. 


DEDICA  TOR  V  LE  TTER. 


vil 


To  that  sermon  is  mainly  due  the  present 
little  volume.  If  by  the  blessings  of  Him 
without  whose  blessing  all  efforts  are  vain,  any 
good  results  have  followed  from  the  delivery 
of  these  Lectures,  or  should  follow  from  their 
publication,  you  will  perhaps  be  reminded  of 
the  ancient  promise,  "Cast  thy  bread  upon 
the  waters:  for  thou  shalt  find  it  after  many 
days. " 

This  is  the  reason  why  I  could  not  do  other- 
wise than  ask  you  to  let  me  allow  myself  the 
pleasure  of  connecting  your  name  with  a  volume 
in  no  way  worthy  of  such  an  honour,  except 
from  the  fact  that  it  breathes  sincere  convic- 
tions on  the  subjects  with  which  it  deals,  and 
that  those  convictions  are,  at  any  rate  in  their 
main  outlines,  in  sympathy  with  your  own. 

It  would  be  presumption  on  my  part  to  speak 
of  the  debt  of  gratitude  which,  in  common  with 
the  whole  Church,  I  owe  to  your  writings  ;  but 
let  me  here  thankfully  record  the  yet  deeper 
personal   debt   which  I  owe  to   your   influence 


# 


n 


and  example  during  the  years  when  we  worked 
together.  You  then  sowed  the  germ  from  which 
this  little  book  has  sprung,  and  you,  at  least, 
will  receive  with  kindness  any  portion,  however 
trivial,  of  ripened  grain.  If  the  ears  be  thin, 
and  if  there  be  scarlet  poppies  amid  the  corn, 
others  will  set  it  down,  not  to  the  sowing,  but 
to  the  inherent  poverty  of  the  soil  on  which 
the  good  seed  fell; — 

*'  Grandia  saepe  quibus  mandavimus  hordea  sulcis 
Infelix  lolium  et  steriles  nascuntur  avenae." 


I  am, 
My  dear  Westcott, 

Very  sincerely  yours, 


F.  W.  FARRAR. 


! 


■ 


I  I 


**  The  old  order  changeth,  giving  place  to  the  new, 
And  God  fulfils  Himself  in  many  ways, 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world." 

Tennyson,  Morte  d" Arthur, 

**As  princes,  after  certain  periods,  change  the  emblems  on 
their  coins,  choosing  sometimes  the  lion,  at  others  stars  or  angels, 
for  the  die,  and  endeavouring  to  give  a  higher  value  to  the  gold 
by  the  striking  character  of  the  impression,  so  God  has  made 
piety  assume  these  novel  and  varied  forms  of  life,  like  so  many 
new  characters,  to  awaken  the  admiration  not  only  of  the 
disciples  of  the  faith,  but  also  of  the  unbelieving  world." — 
Theodoret.  Hist,  ReL  25  (ap.  Neander,  Ch.  Hist.  iii.  345). 


I 


4 


PREFACE. 


This  little  book  is  of  the  humblest  and  most 
unpretending  character. 

Since  my  own  churchy  was  closed  for  restora- 
tion I  was  able  to  accept  an  invitation  from 
my  kind  friend  the  Rev.  H.  J.  S.  Blunt,  Rector 
of  St.  Andrew's,  Holborn,  to  deliver  some  of 
the  Thursday  Evening  I-ent  Lectures  in  that 
church.^  The  audience  consisted  largely  of 
men,  and  especially  of  young  men  from  some 
of   the    neighbouring    city   firms.     As    it  was 

^  I  cannot  let  this  book  appear  without  oflering  to  the  Rector 
of  St.  Andrew's  my  warm  thanks  for  the  advice  and  sympathy 
which  enable  me  to  look  back  with  so  much  happiness  to  those 
five  evenings  spent  in  his  Church  and  Rectory. 


i 


Xll 


PREFACE, 


understood  that  entire  latitude  was  permitted 
in  the  choice  of  the  subject,  and  as  Canon 
Barry  had  delivered  a  course  the  year  before 
on  Ecclesiastical  History,  I  gladly  seized  the 
opportunity  of  saying  a  {^'^  simple  words  upon 
the  lessons  which  we  may  learn  from  past  ideals 
of  holiness.  The  Lectures  excited  some  interest, 
and  friends  on  whose  judgment  I  could  rely 
were  so  decidedly  of  opinion  that  their  publica- 
tion would  be  useful  to  those  who  heard  them, 
and  to  many  more  who  did  not,  that  after  a 
little  natural  reluctance  I  decided  to  place 
them  in  the  hands  of  Messrs.  Macmillan. 
They  will,  I  hope,  be  the  last  sermons  v;hich 
I  shall  publish  for  some  time  to  come. 

It  ought  to  be  needless  for  me  to  say  that 
these  Lectures  were  not  suggested  by  any 
sympathy  for  the  peculiar  features  of  mediaeval 
religion.  I  desired  to  call  attention  to  the 
lives   of    men    preeminent   for  goodness ;    but 


PREFACE. 


XIU 


yet  I  have   repeatedly  warned  my  readers   to 

beware  of  their  intellectual  errors,  and  to  see 

that  the  attempt   to  reproduce   the  mere  ex- 
ternal aspects  of  their  lives  would  be  at  once 

impossible  and  pernicious. 

I  must  beg  all  readers  to  regard  the  following 
pages  as  nothing  more  than  Lenten  Sermons, 
written  and  delivered  from  week  to  week — 
lectures  which  aim  solely  at  Christian  edifica- 
tion, and  which  are  in  no  wise  intended  for 
historical  disquisitions.  That  Christian  bio- 
graphy should  sometimes  be  introduced  on  such 
occasions  into  the  pulpit  is  surely  desirable, 
and  others  may  be  able  to  handle  it  more 
ably  and  successfully  than  has  been  possible 
to  me. 

I  have  indicated  in  the  footnotes  the  books 
to  which  I  referred  in  writing  the  Lectures,  and 
I  here  mention  a  few  of  those  which  are  most 
easily  procurable,  for  the  sake  of  any  who  may 


I  /  ! 


\ 


XIV 


PREFACE. 


nil 


desire  to  read  further  on  the  subjects  on  which 
I  have  touched.    Ncander  s  and  Gieseler*s  Eccle- 
siastical Histories,  Montalembert's  Monks  of  the 
West,  Dean   Mihnans  History  of  Christianity 
and    Latin    Christianity,    Archbishop   Trench's 
Medi(Bval  CJmrch  History  and  Kenan's  Etudes 
Religieuses,   were   useful   for   all    the    Lectures, 
and  especially  for  the  first.    For  the  second  little 
more  was  needed    than  Canon    Kingsley's  ad- 
mirable volume  on  the  Hermits,   in   which   he 
translates  large  parts  of  the  lives  of  St.  Antony 
by  St.  Athanasius,  and  of  the  Hermit  Saint  Paul 
by   St.    Jerome.      For   the   third    I   consulted, 
among  other  books,   the  charming   pictures   of 
monastic  life  in  Dean  Church's  St,  Anschn  and 
Mr.     Morisons    St,    Bernard,    Froude's    Short 
Studies,   Mrs.    Jameson's   Art   Legends  of  the 
Monastic   Orders,  Mr.    Kcnelm   Digby's  Mores 
Catholici,  and  Broad  Stone  of  Honour,  and  the 
Lives  of  Lacordaire  by  Foisset,   Montalernbert 


PREFACE, 


XV 


Miss  Greenwell  and  Father  Chocarne.  For 
the  fourth  I  read  the  tenth,  eleventh,  and 
twelfth  cantos  of  Dante's  Paradiso,  Mrs.  Oli- 
phant's  St.  Francis  of  Assissi,  and  Ozanam's 
Etudes  Gennaniques  and  Les  Pol'tes  Fran- 
ciscains.  For  the  fifth  Sir  J.  Stephen's  Lectures 
on  Ecclesiastical  Biography,  Maclear's  Apostles 
of  MedicTi-'al  Europe,  Miss  Yonge's  Pioneers 
and  Founders,  and  the  biographies  of  Dr. 
Livingstone,  Bishop  Mackenzie,  and  Bishop 
Coleridge   Patteson. 

I  have  here  touched  on  subjects  respecting 
which  all  Christians  are,  I  trust,  agreed;  and 
I  pray  \\\?X  God's  blessing  may  attend  words 
written  with  the  sole  desire  to  promote  sim- 
plicity of  life  and  sincerity  of  heart.  If  from 
the  perusal  of  the  following  pages  any  reader 
should  be  led  to  see  how  deep  a  moral  and 
spiritual  benefit  he  may  derive  from  study- 
ing in  a    right    and    humble   spirit    the   lives 


)s 


XVI 


PREFACE, 


\ 


of  the  "heroes  of  unselfishness"  in  every  age 
of  Christianity,  my  object  will  have  been 
well  fulfilled.  It  will  have  been  still  more 
amply  and  blessedly  fulfilled  if  any  youth- 
ful reader  become  better  prepared  to  face  the 
trials  and  temptations  of  future  years  by 
learning  that 

"  Self-reverence,  self-knowledge,  self-control. 
These  three  alone  lead  life  to  sovereign  power  ; " 

and  that  these  can  only  be  attained  by  follow- 
ing God's  blessed  saints,  in  all  virtuous  and 
godly  living,  along  that  way  of  the  cross 
which  was  pointed  out  to  us  by  the  "King 
of  Saints  "—Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 


St.  Margaret's  Rectory,  Westminster, 
Easter ^  1878. 


CONTENTS. 


SERMON  I. 

PAGE 
THE   MARTYRS I 

SERMON  II. 
THE    HERMITS 33 

SERMON  III. 

THE   MONKS 69 

SERMON  IV. 

THE   EARLY   FRANCISCANS II5 

SERMON  V. 

THE  MISSIONARIES 155 

APPENDIX 193 

INDEX 197 

h 


A' 


SAINTLY  WORKERS. 

"Sanctis  qui  sunt  in  terra  ejus  ;  mirificavit  omnes  voluntates 
meas  in  eis. " — Psalm  xvi.  3. 


SERMON  I. 


THE    MARTYRS. 


crnfc  MAXAipAc  err^c  Oeof. 

Ignatius,  ad Smyrn  4. 


I 


THE  MARTYRS. 

or    6t7oi    fiapTupfs  —  01    vvv    rov    Xpiaruv   irapcSpot    Koi    rr.i 
PaffiKciai  avTOv  KOivuvoi.—DlO^iVS.  AlEX.  J/.  £us3.  vi.  42. 

•*  Though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned,  and  have  not  charity, 
it  profiteth  me  nothing." — I  CoR.  xiii.  3. 

**  And  one  of  the  elders  answered,  saying  unto  me,  What  are 
these  that  are  a- rayed  in  white  robes?  and  whence  came  they? 
And  I  said  unto  him.  Sir,  thou  l<novvest.     And  he  said  to  me, 
Tlic-e  are  they  which  came  out  of  great  tribulation,   and  have 
washed  their  robes,  and  made  them  white  in  the  blood  of  the 
Lamb.     Therefore  are  they  before  the  throne  of  God,  and  serve 
Ilim  day  and  night  in  His  temple  :  and  He  that  sitteth  en  the 
throne  shall  dwell  among  them.     They  shall  hunger  no  more, 
neither  thirst  any  more  ;  neither  shall  the  sun  light  on  them,  nor 
any  heat.     For  the  Lamb  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  throne 
shall  feed  them,  and  shall  lead  them  unto  living  fountains  of 
waters  ;  and  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes." — 
Rev.  vii.  13-17. 


B  2 


>-•««■ '.•MaBaaai^Kf^v^  a 


V 


SERMON  1} 

THE   MARTYRS, 

Matt.  x.  39. 
lie  that  loseth  his  life  for  My  sake  shall  find  it, 

I  HAVE  been  asked  on  these  Lenten  evenings 
to  bring  before  you  some  of  the  past  ideals  of 
holy  work  and  noble  testimony  in  the  history 
of  the  Christian  Church,  and  I  wish,  with 
God's  blessing,  to  do  so  in  a  very  plain  and 
simple  manner ; — and  this  evening  we  shall 
speak  about  martyrs. 

I.  You  all  know,  my  brethren,  that  the  three 
days  which  immediately  follow  Christmas  Day 
are  dedicated  to  the  memories  of  martyrs.  It 
might  at  first  glance  seem  strange,  but  it  is 
a  fact  of  which  we  soon  catch  the  meaning, 
that  after  the  brightness,  the  joy,  the  festivities 

^  Preached  at  St.  Andrew's,  Holborn,  Thursday,  March  14. 


SAINTL  Y  WORKERS,         [serm.  i. 


of  so  glad   a  commemoration,  we  should   pass 
at    once,    and    without    pause,    to    thoughts    of 
agony   and    persecution.     The  26th,   27th,  and 
28th     of     December    are    commemorations    of 
martyrdom  ;    first,    the    day    of    St.    Stephen, 
martyr   both    in    will    and   deed  ;    then    of  St. 
John  the  Evangelist,  of  whom  legend  says  that 
he   was  saved   from   a  caldron   of  burning   oil 
at  the  Latin  Gate,  and  who  was  thus  a  martyr 
in  will,  though  not  in  deed ;  then  of  the  Holy 
Innocents,  "flowers   of  the  martyrs  whom  on 
the  very  threshold  of  the  light  Christ's  perse- 
cutor swept  away  as  the  whirlwind  sweeps  away 
the  budding  rose"^ — martyrs  "not  by  speaking, 
but  by  dying" — martyrs   in   deed,  but   not    in 
will.     But  the  fact  ceases  to   be   strange  when 
we  recall  Christ's  own  words :  "  Suppose  ye  that 
I  am  come  to  give  peace  on  the  earth  ?     I  came 
not  to  send  peace,  but   a  sword ; "   and  those 

1  **  Salvete,  flores  niartynim, 

Quos  lucis  ipso  in  limine 
Christi  insecutor  sustulit 
Ceu  turbo  nascentes  rosas." 

Prudent.  De  S,  S,  Innocentt, 


SERM.  I.] 


THE  MARTYRS, 


> 


other  words  attributed  to  Him  by  early  Christ- 
ian writers  :  "  He  who  is  near  me,  is  near  the 
fire;"  "Near  God,  near  the  sword."  ^  Christ 
had  lived  and  died  ;  but  how  should  men  hear 
of  Him  without  a  preacher,  and  how  should 
they  preach  except  they  were  sent  ?  "  Ye  are 
witnesses  of  these  things,"— "Ye  shall  be  wit- 
nesses unto  Me,"— He  said  to  His  disciples; 
and  the  word  martyr  originally  meant  witness 
and  nothing  more.^  It  was  only  afterwards 
that  it  came  to  mean  a  witness  to  Christ  by 
death.  But  the  essence  of  all  martyrdom  is 
witness  to  the  truth  of  God  ;  and  though  the 
wild  beast  bounds  no  longer  upon  its  victim 
in  the  crowded  amphitheatre,  and  the  flames 
feed  not  on  human  limbs  at  the  kindled  stake, 
we  shall  see,  I  trust,  that  there  are  martyrdoms 
of  life  no  less  than  of  death,  and  in  modern  as 
well  as  in  ancient  times. 

^  Luke  xii.  51  ;  Matt.  x.  34;  Orig.  //om.  injerem.  iii.  778; 
Ignat.  Ad  Syvirn.  4  (Wescott,  Introd.  to  Gospels,  p.  430). 

2  Luke  xxiv.  48;  Acts  i.  8.  In  Acts  xxii.  20;  Heb.  xii.  i, 
we  can  see  the  gradual  transition  of  the  word  to  its  secondary 
meaning. 


8 


SAINTL  V  WORKERS.        [serm.  i. 


.-I 


2.  The  quality  which  St  Stephen  displayed 
in  eminence  was  courage,  and  courage  is  essen- 
tially the  martyr's  virtue.  But  it  was  not  by 
his  death  only  that  this  courage  was  manifested. 
The  mere  physical  courage  which  faces  death 
without  a  shudder  is  not  rare;  it  is  found 
in  thousands  of  the  most  ordinary  men.  Take 
a  common  ploughboy  from  the  hillside  and 
train  him  as  a  soldier,  and  so  strong  are  the  in- 
fluences upon  him  of  the  discipline  of  his  life, 
the  presence  of  his  comrades,  the  eye  of  his 
officer,  that  he  will  advance  unflinching  upon 
the  batteries  that  vomit  their  cross-fire  upon 
him,  though  he  well  knows  that  not  his  will  be 
the  glory  of  victor)',  and  that  where  he  falls 
there  will  he  lie,  unknown  and  unnoticed,  on  the 
crimson  sod.^  Far  loftier  is  the  courage  which 
knows   no   other   training  than  the  instincts  of 

^  **  But  tak'  him  from  his  native  hill, 

Say,  '  Such  is  royal  George's  will, 

And  there's  the  foe  ;  * 
His  only  thought  will  be  to  kill 

Twa  at  ae  blow."  Burns. 

There  is  a  similar  passage  in  one  of  Kossuth's  speeches. 


SERM.  I.] 


THE  MARTYRS, 


a  manly  heart ;  and  above  all  the  courage  which 
holds  out  in  utter  loneliness.  Almost  any  man 
will  confront  peril  with  a  multitude;  scarcely  one 
in  a  thousand  will  stand  alone  against  a  multi- 
tude when  they  are  bent  on  wrong.  Thousands, 
again,  will  risk  all  for  a  hoary  prejudice  :  only 
the  true  martyr  souls  have  the  battle-brunt 
which  will  abide  to  the  death  by  a  new  or  a 
forgotten  truth.  And  this  was  the  courage  of 
St.  Stephen.  Though  only  a  Hellenist  among 
Hebrews — only  a  deacon  among  Apostles — he 
had  seen  deeper  into  Christianity  than  any  of 
his  brethren.  He  saw,  with  perfect  clearness, 
two  great  principles  which  dawned  but  slowly 
and  dimly  upon  their  minds.  One  was  that  the 
Law  of  Moses  as  a  system  was  doomed  to  pass 
away — fading  even  as  the  glory  faded  from  his 
once-illuminated  face:  the  other  was  that  Christ- 
ianity was  to  be  a  free  revelation  not  to  Jews 
only,  but  to  all  the  world  ; — that  henceforth  all 
mankind  was  to  be  a  brotherhood,  with  equal 
privileges,  in  the  great  family  of  God ; — that 
in  Christ  Jesus  there  was  to  be  neither  Greek 


lO 


SAINTL  Y  WORKERS.        [serm.  i. 


SERM.  I.] 


THE  MARTYRS. 


II 


nor  ]^v,,  neither  barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor 
free,  but  Christ    all  and    in   all.     And  since  it 
had  been  given   him   to  see  these  truths,  and 
their  infinite  importance,  he  was  ready  even  to 
die  for  them.      It  did  not  damp  his  ardour  to 
stand    utterly  alone  amid    the   raging   contro- 
versies of  hostile  synagogues.     His  was  no  mere 
flaring   enthusiasm   which    smouldered    at    the 
breath  of  danger.      He  did  not  even  quail  when 
he  found   himself  face   to   face  with  the  stern 
menace  of  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim.     They  bent 
on  him  their  fierce  frowns;  they  glared  on  him 
with  angry  eyes  ;  but  still  his  face  was  as  the 
face  of  an  angel,  and  his  upward  gaze  saw  Jesus 
standing  at  the  right  hand  of  God.    And  so  he 
delivered   his    glowing   testimony,    uttered    his 
bold    rcbuk-e;    and,    not   flinching    when   they 
seized   him    to    drag    him    to   his  doom-even 
when    he    lay    in    anguish    under    the    heaped 
stones,  he  struggled  to  his  knees,'  and  praying 

(a-s   B.hop  \Vordsworth    points  out)   in   ,hc  sonorous  epi.ri.e 
i'o.^^.er,,  wth  which  St.  Luke  ends  the  narrative. 


for  his  murderers,  "  Lord,  lay  not  this  sin  to  their 
charge,"  he  fell  asleep. 

3.  So   died  Christ's  earliest  martyr ;  nor  was 
it  long  before  others  followed  him.     James  the 
son  of  Zebedee  was  slain  with  the  sword.     James, 
the  Lord's  brother,  was  hurled  down  from  the 
Temple  summit.^      One  by  one   the  Apostles 
passed    to    their    unrecorded    dooms.      Thirty 
years    after    the  death   of    Christ,    Rome   was 
burnt   down,  and  being   falsely  accused  of  the 
crim.e,    the    Christians   were  tied   to   the   stake 
in  the  gardens  of  Nero's   Golden    House,   and 
while  he  drove  about  among  the  multitude  in 
the   guise  of  a  charioteer,  the  flames  were  lit, 
and  the  ghastly  darkness  illuminated  by  living 
torches,  of  which    each   was   a    martyr    in   his 
shirt    of  flame.2     st.   Peter,   it  is  said,  died  in 
the  amphitheatre  :    St.  Paul  was,  perhaps,   be- 
headed on  the  Appian  Way.     Slowly,  through 

1  Euseb.  ii.  23. 

«  A.D.  64.  "Ut  flammandi,  atque  ubi  defecisset  dies,  in 
usum  nocturni  luminis,  urerentur."  Tac.  Ann.  xv.  44;  cf. 
Mart.  X.  25  ;  Juv.  i.  155  ;  viii.  235  ;  Sen.  £p.  14;  Tert.  Adv. 
Ad/.  1.  18  ;  A  J  Mart.  5,  &c. 


12 


SAINTL  V  WORKERS.         [serm.  i. 


the  cities  of  Asia,  a  prisoner  chained  in  turns 
to  ten  rough  and  cruel  soldiers,  whom  he 
compared  to  ten  leopards,  the  aged  Ignatius 
journeyed  on  to  be  thrown  to  the  wild  beasts 
before  the  assembled  multitudes  of  Rome.^ 
To  St.  Polycarp  at  Ephesus,  as  the  flames 
arched  over  him,  the  Spirit  of  God  was  as 
a  moist  whistling  wind  amid  the  fire.^  Chris- 
tianos  ad leones,  "The  Christians  to  the  lions," 
became  a  common  cry  of  the  Pagan  mob. 
Old  men  like  Pothinus,  young  maidens  like 
Blandina,  mere  boys  like  St.  Pancrasius,  cheer- 
fully, nay,  triumphantly,  bore  torture  rather 
than  deny  their  Lord.  St.  Perpetua  was  young, 
and  delicate,  and  a  mother.  •'  Have  mercy  on 
thy  babe,"  they  said  to  her  :  "  Have  pity  on  the 
white  hairs  of  thy  father  and  the  infancy 
of  thy  child."  - 1  will  not."  "  Art  thou  then 
a  Christian.?"  they  said,  and  she  answered, 
" '  Yes ; '  and  "  since  my  father  would  have  led 

^  Ignat.  Ad  Ronu  5. 

2  Song  of  the  Three  Children,  v.  s.  27.     For  the  incident  see 
Martyr.  Polyc.  and  Milman,  History  of  ChrUtianUy,  ii.  184  seqq. 


SERM.  I.] 


THE  MARTYRS. 


I^ 


me  away,  Hilarianus  ordered  him  to  be  driven 
off.  .   .*.   Then  sentence  was   pronounced,  and 
we  were   condemned  to  the  wild   beasts;    and 
with  hearts    full    of  joy    returned    to    our    pri- 
son." ^    "  Condemned  to  the  wild  beasts,  and  with 
hearts  full  of  joy  returned  to  our  prison  ! ''     Is 
it  not   strange  >   as  though  the  mention  of  joy 
were  to  a  Christian  the  most  natural  thing  in 
the  world  in  connection  with  an  imprisonment 
of  terrible   cruelty   and    a    death   of  nameless 
horror.     "  Whence,"    it    has    well    been    asked, 
"came    this    tremendous    spirit,    caring,    nay, 
offending   the   fastidious    criticism    of  our  deli- 
cate days } "  What  was  it  that  inspired  St.  Igna- 
tius to  say,   "Now   I    begin   to  be   a    disciple. 
Whether  it  is  fire,  or  the  cross,  or  the  assault 
of  wild  beasts,  or  the  wrenching  of  my  bones, 
the   crunching    of  my    limbs,   the   crushing   of 
my  whole    body,   let   the  tortures  of  the  devil 
all  assail  me,  if  I  do  but  gain  Christ  Jesus." 

1  Acta  SS.  Perpetuce  et  Felicitatis  (see  Tert.  De  Anima,  55)- 
"Magis  damnati  quam  absoluti  gaudemus."— Tert.  Ad  Scap.  I  ; 
Milman,  History  of  Christianity,  ii.  216. 

>  Newman,  Grammar  of  Assent,  p.  472. 


i 


14 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.         [skrm.  i 


SEKM.  I.] 


THE  MARTYRS. 


15 


Why   does    Tertullian    so    boldly   write,    "  Call 
us    Sarmenticii    and    Semaxii,    names  '^derived 
from  the  fagots  wherewith  we  are  burned  and 
the   stakes   to   which   we    are   tied,— these   are 
our  robe  of  victory,  our   triumphal   chariot  !"i 
You  must  not  think  that  the  martyrs  had  any 
spell   which   secured    them   an    immunity  from 
pain.     "  They  shrank  from  suffering   like  other 
men,   but  such  natural   shrinking    was    incom- 
mensurable   with   apostasy.'*      No    intensity   of 
torture   could  affect   a  mental   conviction,   and 
so  adequate  a  support  and  consolation  to  them 
in  death  was   the  sovereign  thought  in  which 
they  lived  ;  so  perfect  the  holy  beauty  of  the 
maiden  as  she  knelt  to  await  the  tiger's  leap  ; 
so  peaceful  the  sleep  of  the  young  boy,  beside 
his  wooden  cross,  as  the  morn  dawned  grey  on 
the  grim  circle  where  he  was  to  meet  his  end  ; 
so  radiant  was  the  old  man's  countenance  as  he 
lifted   heavenward    his  trembling  hands  out  of 
the  flame— that  often  and  often  would  the  by- 
standers have  taken  their  places,  and  far  more 

^  Tert.  Apolog,  50, 


gladly  have  shared  their  martyrdom  than  have 
sat  in  guilty  glory  beside  the  tyrants  who 
sentenced  them  to  death.^ 

4.  And  thus,  taking    Christ  at    His  word,  in 
spite  of  every  agony  which   they   were   called 
on   to   endure,   they   found   His    promise   true. 
In    losing    their    lives    they   found    them;    by 
giving   up    all,  they  received  back    more  than 
all.     There  is  no  proof  of  this  more  remarkable 
than  the  absence  of  all   gloomy  or  distressing 
subjects  in  the   catacombs  of  Rome.      '*  For  a 
long  time  peopled  with  martyrs,  ornamented  in 
times  of   persecution    and  under  the  dominion 
of    melancholy   thoughts    and    painful     duties, 
nevertheless,"    says    a     modern    writer,    **they 
represent     in    the    historic    parts    only    heroic 
traits,  and  in  the  decorative    parts    only  what 
is  pleasing  and  graceful  " — the  Good  Shepherd, 
the    Vintage,    fruits     and    flowers,    lambs    and 
cloves, — nothing  but  what  excites  emotions    of 
innocence  and  joy.    In  death,  even  in  execution, 

1  Such  incidents  frequently  occur  in  the  narratives  of  the 
martyrs. 


ii 


i6 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,         [serm.  i. 


early  Christians  saw  only  a  path  to  celestial 
happiness  ;  and  far  from  associating  a  dreadful 
end  with  horror,  they  delighted  to  enliven  it 
with  smiling  colours,  and  adorn  it  with  palms 
and  vine-leaves.  ..."  In  the  Christian  cata- 
combs there  is  no  sign  of  mourning,  no  token 
of  resentment,  no  expression  of  vengeance ;  all 
breathes  softness,  benevolence,  charity.*' *  To 
the  Christian  martyrs  to  live  was  Christ,  and 
therefore  to  die  was  gain. 

5.  But  if  this  was  their  personal  gain,  their 
individual  bliss,  you  will  ask,  What  good  end 
for  us  and  for  the  world  did  the  martyrs 
accomplish  by  their  supreme  self-sacrifice? 
I  will  try  to  tell  you.  I  stood  once  in  a 
little  church  in  Rome,  dedicated  to  St. 
Stephen,  and  opened  once  a  year  only  on 
his  day.  It  is  a  circular  church,  and  on  its 
frescoed  walls,  all  round,  are  painted  the  grim 
scenes  of  centuries  of  martyrdom.  Here,  visibly 
pictured  before  you,  you  see  how  they  were 
stoned,  they  were  sawn  asunder,  were  tempted, 

*  M.  d'Agincourt,  ap.  Milman,  History  of  Christianity,  iii.  5,4. 


>  IHB 


SERM.  I.] 


THE  MARTYRS. 


17 


were  slain   with  the  sword,  wandered  about  in 
sheepskins    and    goatskins,   in    dens   and    caves 
of    the    earth,    being    destitute,    afflicted,   tor- 
mented :  and  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  who   thus   speaks   of   them,  tells   us 
also — and    is    not    the    existence    of    such    a 
church  in  such  a   place  a  pre-eminent   witness 
that    so    it    was } — how,    through    faith,    these 
martyrs  subdued  kingdoms,  wrought  righteous- 
ness, stopped   the    mouths    of    lions,  quenched 
the   violence   of    fire,    out    of    weakness    were 
made  strong,  waxed  valiant  in  fight,  turned  to 
flight  the   armies    of  the  aliens.      One   answer 
indeed  to  the  question  "  What  good  they  did  ?  '* 
and  an  answer  of  infinite  importance  to  them- 
selves, would    be,   as   we   have  seen,  that  they 
gained   Christ ;   that  they  possessed  their  own 
souls  in  patience ;   that  they  were  tortured,  not 
accepting  deliverance,  that  they  might  obtain  a 
better  resurrection.    But  I  do  not  think  that  this 
would  have  been  the  thought  most  immediately 
prominent  in  the  hearts  of  the  greatest  of  the 
martyrs.      If  St.  Paul  could  say  that  he  could 

C 


i8 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.         [serm.  i. 


1 


have  wished  himself  accursed  from  Christ  for  the 
sake  of  his  brethren  after  the   flesh,   I   do  not 
think  that  his  greatest  followers  looked  merely 
on  the  world  as  a  great  sea  of  fire,  in  which,  amid 
the  universal  shipwreck,  they  had  nothing  to  do 
but  to  seize  for  safety  their  individual    plank. 
No!     I   think  that  they  knew  well   that  there 
is    "nothing   fruitful    but   sacrifice;"    that    the 
blood  of  martyrs  is  the  seed  of   the  Church  ; 
that    by  their   death   and  by  their   constancy, 
they  were  securing  the  victory  of  the  cause  they 
loved.     And  so  it  was.     "  The  angels  of  martyr- 
dom and  victory,"  says  Mazzini,  "  are  brothers  : 
both  extend   their  protecting   wings    over    the 
cradle  of  future  life.''^     It  was  the  martyrs  who 
mainly   won   the   victory   of    Christianity,   and 
when  "Rome  at   last   found  that   she   had    to 
deal  with  a  host  of  Scaevolas,  the  proudest  of 
earthly  sovereignties,  arrayed   in  the  completest 
of  material  resources,  humbled  herself  before  a 
power  which  was  founded  on  a  mere  sense  of 
the  unseen." 2     Nor  did  it  shake  them  that  they 

1   Works,  vi.  746.         «  Newman,  Grammar  of  Assent,  i.  472. 


SKRM.  I.] 


THE  MARTYRS, 


19 


I 


were  to  die  not  having  seen  the  victory,  as 
Moses  died  before  his  feet  had  touched  the 
Holy  Land.  They  walked  by  faith,  and  not 
by  sight ;  and  trusting  in  God,  they  knew  that 
in  due  time  the  victory  would  come. 

And  when  Christianity  had  triumphed  in- 
deed, but  grown  corrupt,  there  was  still  room 
for  martyrs.  It  was  to  keep  pure  the  faith  of 
Christ  that  Savonarola,  the  great  reformer  of 
Florence,  faced  agony  and  shame.  It  was  this 
that  nerved  John  Huss,  the  great  reformer  of 
Bohemia,  wearing  his  cap  painted  all  over  with 
devils,  to  walk  so  calmly  to  the  stake.  It  was 
this  which  sustained  Martin  Luther  in  his  life 
of  stormy  conflict  against  cardinals  and  kings. 
It  was  this  that  enabled  Latimer  and  Ridley 
to  play  the  men  amid  the  flames,  -and  to  light 
a  candle  in  England  which,  thank  God,  is  not 
yet  put  out.  A  mere  holiday  opinion  will 
never  inspire  the  enthusiasm  of  conviction ; 
but  mankind  will  ever  yield  due  honour  to  a 
cause  for  which  men  are  ready  to  sufler  and 
to  die. 

C   2 


I 


20 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,  [serm.  i. 


SERM.  I.] 


THE  MARTYRS. 


21 


6.  This  then  was  one  good  thing  which  the 
martyrs  did  for  all  the  world, — they  changed  the 
cross  of  Christ   from  an   emblem  of  horror  and 
infamy  to  the  proudest  of  all  symbols,  to   be 
woven   in  gold  on  the  banners  of   armies  and 
set   in   gems   on   the   crowns    of  kings.      And 
another  grand   thing   they  did  was  to  set  the 
loftiest   of  all    examples  ;    to   bear    witness  to 
the  most   necessary  of   all    truths,   a    truth   to 
which    in   these   lectures  we    shall   have  again 
and  again  to  recur,  and  the  only  truth  which 
can  purify  a  corrupt  society  or  ennoble  a  selfish 
world,— that  there  is,  in  life,   something  better 
than    ease    and    comfort,    more  delightful  than 
pleasure,  "  more  golden  than  gold,"  that  the  life 
is  more  than  meat,  and  the  body  than  raiment ; 
and    that    man's    life    consisteth    not    in     the 
abundance    of    things    which    he    possesseth. 
Such  men,  as  has  well   been  said,  "create  an 
epidemic  of   nobleness."  ^     Men  become  better 
and    greater    from    gazing    at    their    example; 
more   ready  to  do  and  dare  ;   more  willing  to 

*  Froude,  Short  Studies,  ii.  15. 


4 


lift  their  eyes  out  of  the  mire  of  selfishness 
and  the  dust  of  anxiety  and  toil ;  more  brave 
to  try  whether  they  too  cannot  *' scale  the 
toppling  crags  of  duty,"  and  hold  converse  with 
these  their  loftier  brethren  upon  the 

"  Shining  tablelands 
To  which  our  God  himself  is  moon  and  sun." 

Through  the  darknesses  and  disappointments 
of  life,  amid  the  wars  and  miseries  of  history, 
these  high  examples  glide  ever  before  us 
like  a  pillar  of  fire.  And  this  their  power  of 
example  by  death  becomes  a  power  of  in- 
fluence in  life.  It  is  with  good  men  as  with 
evil.  Evil,  as  we  all  know  to  our  cost,  at- 
tracts by  its  sympathies,  and  those  who  have 
once  been  overcome  by  it,  add,  alas !  even 
unconsciously  to  its  power  of  attraction.  Just 
as  every  spark,  however  small,  has  its  effect, 
and  glows,  and  gleams,  and  involves  a  danger 
or  a  possibility  of  conflagration,  even  so  a 
spark  of  evil  in  the  heart  of  a  fellow-man 
betrays  itself  to  us  through  the  mere  power  of 


m 


22 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,        [serm.  i. 


SF.RM.  I.] 


THE  MARTYRS. 


23 


its  existence,  and  can,  even  without  words, 
make  itself  intelligible.  Well,  so  is  it  also, 
thank  God,  with  good.  "The  heroic  self- 
sacrifice  of  one  single  man  may  not  only  rally 
a  whole  wavering  host,  but  may  even  flash 
like  lightning  through  the  centuries,  and  kindle 
in  a  whole  nation  a  flame  of  holy  enthusiasm."^ 
You  have  heard  the  story  of  the  battle  of 
Sempach.  The  Swiss  were  fighting  the 
Austrians,  and  strove  in  vain  to  break  at  any 
single  point  the  serried,  impenetrable  phalanx 
of  Austrian  spears.  Then  one  man,  Arnold 
of  Winkelried,  unknown  till  then,  shouted  to 
his  comrades  to  take  care  of  his  wife  and 
children,  and  that  he  wc^ld  break  the  ranks; 
and  so,  rushing  forwards,  clasped  a  whole 
armful  of  spears  into  his  brawny  arms,  and 
dragged  them  down  with  him,  and  fell  dead 
as  he  received  their  points  into  his  heart, — but 
broke  the  line.  Over  his  dead  body  his 
comrades  charged  to  victory.  It  is  even  thus 
that    many   a    martyr    has    burst    a    path    of 

1  Lange  Life  of  Jesus  ii.  39,  E.  Tr. 


1 


triumph  for  others  into  the  serried  ranks  of 
wrong.  It  was  thus  that  the  obscure  monk 
Telemachus,  determining  to  denounce  in  the 
face  of  guilty  myriads  the  detestable  butcheries 
of  the  amphitheatre,  leapt  into  the  arena  before 
them  all,  and  faced  the  angry,  yelling  mob  of 
20,000  spectators  and  forbade  the  gladiators 
to  fight,  and  was  struck  down  and  stabbed, 
and  trampled  on,  and  braved  the  death ;  but 
by  that  witness  and  that  martyrdom,  put  an 
end  for  ever  to  those  disgusting  and  cruel 
shows.^  It  was  thus,  to  take  modern  instances, 
that  in  the  face  of  furious  insulting  slave- 
owners, who  heaped  upon  him  every  form  of 
abuse  and  calumny,  William  Wilberforce  fought 
out  in  the  House  of  Commons  the  battle  of 
the  slave,  and,  by  a  life  of  struggle,  put  an 
end  for  ever  to  the  infamous  traffic  in  human 
flesh.  It  was  thus  that,  in  self-sacrifice  and  toil, 
spending  his  whole  fortune  in  the  cause  of 
the  prisoner  and  Cfiptive,  John  Howard  visited 

>  Theodctret,  v.  26.     In  the  martyrologies  of  Bede,  &c.,  he  is 
called  St.  Almachus.         m 


24 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,         [serm.  i. 


the  prisons  of   Europe,  and   restored    them    to 
humanity,  and  wiped  from  the  sword  of  justice 
its  nr.03t  polluting  stain.     It  is  thus  that  even 
now,  in  the  teeth  of  angry  clangour  and  sneering 
prejudice,  good  men   are   fighting  God's   great 
battle   of   temperance    against   that   dcgrr.ding 
vice  of   drunkenness   which    disgraces,   defiles, 
and  if  the  plague  be  not  stayed,  will  one  day 
ruin  our  land.     In    such   causes,    under   such 
conditions,   by   such    sacrifices,    "  men   become 
magnetic."     They  flash  in  upon  guilty  nations 
and  slumbering  consciences  the  light  of  truth. 
Even  in  the  most  corrupt  ages  there  are  always 
more   than   we   suppose,   who,  in   their   hearts, 
rebel  against  the   prevailing   fashions ;    and    of 
these    one    takes    courage    from    another,   one 
supports  another.     Thus  there  rally  round  these 
Elijahs   the    7,000  who   have   not    bowed    the 
knee   to   Baal;    communities   are   formed   with 
higher  principles   of-  action   and  purer  intellec- 
tual  beliefs ;   and,  as   their   numbers    multiply, 
"they  catch   fire   with   a   common   idea  and   a 
common  indignation,  and   ultimately  burst  out 


SFRM.  I.] 


THE  MARTYRS. 


25 


into    open    war   with    the    lies    and    iniquities 
of  men. "  ^ 

7.  I   could  add  much  more  on  this   subject, 
but  I  must  not  weary  you.     What  I  have  tried 
to  make  you  see  is  that  there  is  some  good  to 
the  world  in  the  results  of  martyrdom,  in  the 
example  of  martyrdom  ;  that  the  martyrs  have 
been,  in  fact,  the  salt  of  the  earth.     Have  been 
— nay,  they  are !     For  martyrdom  is  not   one, 
but  manifold  ;  it  is  often  a  battlefield  where  no 
clash  of  earthly  combatants  is  heard ;  it  is  often 
a  theatre  no  wider  than  a  single  nameless  home. 
Sometimes  it  is  passive  endurance  ;   sometimes 
it   is   active  opposition ;    sometimes    it    is   the 
decided  warfare  against  a  tyranny :    sometimes 
it  is  the  stout  declaration  of  a  truth : — but  it  is 
always  a  firm  belief  in  the  eternal  distinctions 
between  right  and  wrong  ;  an  evidence  of  con- 
viction that  there   are  worse  evils  in  Hfe  than 
pain,  and  poverty,  and  persecutions  ;  and  higher 
blessings  than  pleasure,  and  success,  and  wealth ; 
worse  evils   by  far  than  those  which  the  v/orld 

*  See  Froude,  Short  Studies,  ii.  15. 


26 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.         [serm.  i. 


dreads,  and  higher  blessings  by  far  than  those 
for  which  it  toils.  To  have  the  spirit  of  a 
martyr — and  he  who  has  it  will  be,  in  the  highest 
sense,  a  martyr — is  to  be  true  at  all  costs  to  the 
best  and  highest  things  you  know.  He  who 
willingly,  and  with  no  thought  of  reward,  risks 
his  life  to  save  others ;  he  who  cheerfully 
braves  loss  rather  than  do  what  he  deems  dis- 
honourable; he  who  faces  persecution  rather 
than  abandon  what  he  feels  to  be  right, — he 
has  the  martyr's  heart.  The  Russian  serf  who,  to 
save  the  life  of  his  master's  children,  leapt  out 
from  the  sledge  among  the  wolves,  into  the 
saiow — he  was  a  martyr.  The  American  pilot 
of  Lake  Erie,  who  to  bring  his  burning  steamer 
safe  to  the  jetty's  side,  clung  on  to  the  tiller  till 
he  fell  a  blackened  corpse,— he  was  a  martyr. 
During  the  last  Chinese  war,  a  private  of  the 
Buffs  with  some  Hindoos  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  Chinese,  and  was  ordered  to  perform  the 
kotow  ;  the  Sikhs  obeyed,  but  the  soldier,  saying 
that  he  would  not  prostrate  himself  before  any 
Chinaman  ahve,  was  killed. 


SERM.  I.] 


THE  MARTYRS, 


27 


**Poor,  reckless,  rude,  lowborn,  untaught, 

Bewildered  and  alone, 
A  heart,  with  English  instincts  fraught, 

He  yet  could  call  his  own. 
Ay !  tear  his  body  limb  from  limb, 

Bring  cord,  or  axe,  or  flame, 
He  only  knows  that  not  through  him 

Shall  England  come  to  shame. 
Yes  !  honour  calls,  with  strength  like  steel, 

He  puis  home  vis  ons  by, 
Let  dusky  Indians  whine  and  kneel. 

An  English  lad  could  die; 
And  thus,  with  eyes  that  would  not  shrink, 

With  knee  to  man  unbent, 
Unfahering  on  its  dreadful  brink. 

To  his  red  grave  he  went"^ 

He,  too,  was  a  martyr.  And  every  man  has 
some  gleam  of  the  martyr-spirit,  who  encounters 
any  serious  peril  to  save  others.  Six  years  ago, 
on  the  coast  of  Scotland,  seven  young  boys 
rowed  out  to  sea  to  fish.  The  boat  was  too 
small,  and  the  boys  having  suddenly  gone  to 
one  side,  she  was  upset,  and  all  the  seven  were 
plunged  into  the  sea,  not  far  from  land.  One 
little  fellow  alone  could  swim,  a  boy  not  yet 
thirteen  years  old — let  his  name  be  recorded — 

1  Sir  F.  H.  Doyle. 


28 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.         [serm.  c. 


Alexander  Sutherland.  One  after  another  that 
boy  saved  five  of  his  companions.  In  trying  to 
save  the  sixth  he  became  himself  exhausted 
and  sank  to  rise  no  more.  The  five  whom  he 
had  rescued  were  restored  to  their  weeping 
parents,  but  the  brave  little  swimmer  who  had 
saved  his  fellows,  sank  and  was  drowned,  and 
they  laid  him  in  his  grave  upon  the  shore.  And 
he,  too,  was,  in  his  way,  a  martyr. 

"He  dares,  and  sinks,  and  dies  alone 

With  all  the  saved  in  view, 
A  Christ  among  the  fisher-lads, 

The  ransom  of  his  crew ; 
Oh  !  great  young  heart,  all  goodness  fence 

Thy  grave  by  yon  rough  sea  ! 
Who  says  the  race  is  dwindling  down, 

That  owns  a  lad  like  thee?"^ 


Let  us  learn,  then,  my  friends,  practically  this 
one  lesson.  If  the  hour  of  martyrdom,  of  wit- 
ness, comes  to  you,  will  you  be  ready  for  it } 
It  may  come  in  very  humble,  in  very  unexpected 

^  These  verses,  by  the  Rev.  W.  Griffiths,  are  quoted  by  the 
Hon.  and  Rev.  W.  H.  Lyttelton  in  his  Aids  to  Christian 
Education. 


SERM.  I.] 


THE  MARTYRS. 


29 


ways.     The   late  chaplain-general  of  the  forces 
tells   us   that   once   a   young    soldier    came   to 
him,  and  said,  that  when  in  his  first  night  in 
the  barracks  he  knelt  down  to  say  his  prayers, 
the    others    all    laughed    at    him,    and    flung 
their    boots    at   him.      The    chaplain    advised 
him   to   say  his   prayers   in   bed.      Next   time 
he  met  the  young  soldier,  he  asked   him   how 
the    plan    had    succeeded  }    "  I    did    it    for  a 
night   or   two,"    said  the   soldier,    "  but  then    I 
thought   that    it  looked  like  being  ashamed  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  I  knelt  down  again  to  say  my 
prayers  by  my  bed,  but  none  of  the  others  laugh 
at  me  now.     On  the  contrary,  they  kneel  down 
themselves  and  say  their  own  prayers."     Was 
not   the  chaplain  wrong  }  was  not   the   soldier 
right }  was   not  he,  too,  in  his  way,  a  martyr  } 
*    Will   not  you,  too,   try,  each  In  such  ways   as 
God  may  require  your  witness,  to  be  a  martyr } 
If  not   in    proclaiming   good,   will    you    not    at 
least    try   to    be    God's    witnesses    in    resi.sting 
evil }     Will  you  not  feel,  will   you  not   say,   I 
too  will  try,  like  Stephen,  to  bear  my  witness 


30 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.         [serm.  i. 


to  Christ?     Tradesman   or  merchant,   tempted 
by  false  weights,  or  gambling  speculations,  or 
adulterated  goods,  will  you  not  go  home,  and 
at    any   cost    bear   your   witness   that    "  It    is 
better  to  die  than  to  lie  i  "     You,  who,  to  your 
own  great  loss,  are   tempted   by  any-  usage  of 
society  to  adopt  a  low,  or  a  base,  or  a  worldly 
standard,  will  you  not  bear  witness  that  at  all 
costs  it  is  better  to  obey  God  than  to  do  that 
which   cannot   bring   God's    blessing    with    it? 
Young  man,  who  art  assailed  by  evil  passions 
or   evil  temptations,    when   those   passions   are 
running  riot  in  your  heart,  or  when  your  com- 
panions are  trying  to  make  you  walk  in  the  way 
of  sinners  or  sit  in  the  seat  of  the  scornful,  will 
not  you  bear  your  testimony  that  it  is  better  to 
bear  ridicule  than  to  be  a  blasphemer ;  better  to 
face  craving  than  to  be  a  drunkard  ;  better  to 
suffer  anything  than  to  pollute  or  injure  a  soul 
for  which  Christ  died  ?    O  the  applications  are 
a  thousandfold  !    Only  be  true  to  your  God  ;  be 
true  to  your  Saviour;  be  true  to  yourselves  ;  be 
true  to  the  highest  that  you  know,  and  you,  too. 


SERM.  I.] 


THE  MARTYRS. 


31 


each  in  your  turn,  each  in  your  measure,  shall 
have  the  high  honour  of  helping  forward  by 
your  example  the  cause  of  God,  the  cause  of 
good — you,  too,  shall  be  Christ's  witnesses — you 
too,  shall  join  the  glorious  army,  and  even  if 
you  be  never  called  upon  to  taste  the  martyr's 
agony,  yet,  without  resisting  unto  blood,  through 
the  mercy  and  merit  of  your  Lord  and  Saviour 
your  hands  shall  wave  the  martyr's  palm-branch 
and  your  brows  shall  bear  the  martyr's  crown. 


SERMON  II. 


t 


THE    HERMITS. 


-r 


\ 


T 


THE  HERMITS. 

*'  Solitude  is  the  mother-country  of  the  strong ;  silence  is 
their  prayer."— Ravign an. 

"Solitude,  the  audience-chamber  of  God." — W.  S.  Landor. 

**Vl6ifoy  TTphs  ti6vov  Qibv  yei/eaQai." — PlotiN. 

*'  And  Wisdom's  self 
Oft  seeks  to  sweet  retired  solitude  i 
"Where,  with  her  best  nurse,  contemplation, 
She  plumes  her  feathers  and  lets  grow  her  wings, 
That  in  the  various  bustle  of  revolt 
Were  all-to  ruffled,  and  sometimes  impaired." 

Milton,  Comus. 

"Non  beatum  faciunt  hominem  secreta  sil varum,  cacumina 
montium,  si  secum  non  habet  solitudinem  mentis,  sabbatum 
cordis,  tKinquillitatem  conscientiae,  ascensiones  in  corde,  sine 
quibus  omnem  solitudinem  comitantur  mentis  acedia,  curiostas, 
vana  gloria,  periculosae  tentationis  procellae." — Yvo  DE  Char- 

TRES,  £/>.  192  (MONTALEMBERT,  1.  22). 

**  KartKiirov  filv  rets  eV  Hffra  SiarpjjSAy  ojs  /xvpluv  KaKwu  d^opfxas, 
ifiaxnhv  5*  oCirw  diroAtirci*'  •^hvvrfiiiv,** — BASIL,  Ej>,  2, 


D  2 


SERMON  II. 


L 


THE   HERMITS.^ 

Jer.  IX.  2. 

*/  Oh  that  I  had  in  the  wilderness  a  lodging  place  of  wayfaring 
men  ;  that  I  might  leave  my  people^  and  go  from  them  I  For  they 
be  all  adulterers ;  an  assembly  of  treacherous  men.** 

This  cry,  wrung  from  the  sad  and  timid  prophet 
by  the  desperate  iniquities  of  a  decadent  people, 
has  in  all  ages  found  its  counterpart.  Four 
hundred  years  earlier,  amid  the  voices  of  the 
enemy,  and  the  oppression  of  the  wicked,  it  had 
been  the  cry  of  David,  "  Oh  that  I  had  wings 
like  a  dove !  for  then  would  I  flee  away  and 
be  at  rest.  Lo,  then  would  I  wander  far  off, 
and  remain  in  the  wilderness.  I  would  haste  to 
escape  from   the   stormy  wind    and   tempest.  "^ 

*  Preached  at  St.  Andrew's,  Holbom,  Lent,  1878,  March  21. 
«  Ps.  Iv.  6. 


38 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,        [serm.  ii. 


SERM.  II.] 


THE  HERMITS. 


39 


More  than  twenty  centuries  later,  amid  the  con- 
fusions and  depravities  of  the  eighteenth  century 
it  was  the  cry  of  our  own  despairing  and  tender- 
hearted poet, — 

I 

*'  Oh  !  for  a  lodge  in  some  vast  wilderness, 
Some  boundless  contiguity  of  shade, 
Where  rumour  of  oppression  and  deceit. 
Of  unsuccessful  and  successful  war, 
Should  never  reach  me  more  !    My  ear  is  pained, 
My  soul  is  sick,  with  every  day's  report 
Of  wrong  and  outrage  with  which  earth  is  filled. 
There  is  i  o  flesh  in  man's  obdurate  heart  ; 
It  does  not  feel  for  man.     The  natural  bond 
Of  brotherhood  is  severed,  as  the  flax 
That  falls  asunder  at  the  touch  of  fire.''^ 

There  must  be  some  chord  of  sympathy  in 
human  hearts  which  vibrates  m  unison  with 
such  sentiments  as  these,  or  we  should  not  find 
them  echoed  by  high  and  beautiful  natures, 
separated  from  each  other  by  centuries  of 
human  suffering  and  human  wrong.  And  per- 
haps this  very  gathering  is  a  sign  that  men  do 
sometimes  yearn  for  solitude  and  rest,  for  here, 
and  on   a   week-day  evening,   in   the   heart  of 

\  Cowper,  The  Task,  Book  H. 


■> 


London,  with  the  rush  and  roar  of  its  traffic 
in  our  ears,  many  men,  and  even  many  young 
men,  have  assembled  to  listen  to  such  lessons 
as  may  be  gleaned  from  the  life  of  the  Desert 
Fathers.  What  can  be  more  separated  by 
leagues  and  aeons  of  outward  circumstances 
and  inward  sentiment,  than  is  the  life  of  the 
hermits  from  our  own  }  What  more  unlike  their 
loneliness  than  the  dashing  waves  of  this  sea  of 
men  }  What  more  removed  from  their  calm  than 
the  feverish  throbbing  of  the  world's  great  beat- 
ing heart  ?  What  more  unlike  their  poetry,  and 
peace,  and  contemplation,  than  "this  stern 
reality  of  things,  this  colossal  uniformity,  this 
machine-like  movement,  this  sour-visagedness 
of  joy  itself  .^"^  What  more  unlike  their  utter 
indifference  to  temporal  interests,  and  earthly 
cares,  than  all  that  we  see  or  hear  of  around 
us:  these  dim  careworn  faces;  this  dismal  toil; 
this  incessant  anxiety;  these  reckless  specula- 
tions ;  this  mad  greed  for  gold  ;  this  sacrifice, 
for  the    supposed    gains    of    life,   of   all    that 

^  Heine. 


;! 


40 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,        [serm.  ii. 


SERM.  II.] 


THE  HERMITS, 


makes  life  worth  living;  this  puff  and  push; 
this  quackery  and  imposture  ;  this  gilded 
luxury  of  the  wealthy ;  this  ghastly  poverty 
of  the  poor ;  these  severe  conditions  of 
struggle;  these  hardly  veiled  immoralities  of 
pleasure ;  all  the  nominal  Christianity,  and  all 
the  practical  heathenism  of  this  vast,  teeming, 
suffering,  toihng  mass  of  humanity — this  London 
in  the  nineteenth  century  after  the  death  of 
Christ  ?  What  have  we,  who  have  our  part  in 
such  life  as  this,  what  have  we  in  common  with 

the   "sainted   eremites"?    was  not  their  life 

with  its  errors,  no  less  than  with  its  noblenesses 
— the  dream  of  a  byegone  age  ;  an  ideal  which 
we  condemn  as  mistaken  ;  a  torch  which  has 
long   since   smouldered    out  ? — Well,    lest    you 

should  deem  the  subject  wholly  unpractical 

when  it  is  my  humble  desire  that  each  of  these 
lectures  should  have  a  direct  bearing  on  our 
common  lives, — let  me  only  at  first  remind  you 
that  one  of  the  noblest  characters  in  the  Old 
Testament  as  well  as  one  of  the  noblest  in  the 
New,  was  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  hermit  ; 


41 


in  th2  Old,  Elijah,  the  "  lord  of  hair,"  ^  the  rough, 
wild,  half-Arab  prophet  who  shattered  the 
monstrous  idols  of  Jezebel ;  in  the  New,  John 
the  Baptist,  over  whom  the  lips  of  his  Saviour 
pronounced  the  unequalled  eulogy, — "  But  what 
went  ye  out  in  the  wilderness  for  to  see  ?  A 
prophet  ?  yea,  and  I  say  unto  you,  and  much 
more  than  a  prophet !  .  .  .  Among  them  that 
are  born  of  women,  there  hath  not  risen  a 
greater  than  John  the  Baptist."  It  was  in 
special  privileges,  not  in  moral  grandeur,— in 
blessings  vouchsafed,  not  in  holiness  of  charac- 
ter—that, "  notwithstanding,  he  that  is  least  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater  than  he." 

2.  But  we  are  to  speak  to-day  of  those  who, 
under  the  Christian  dispensation,  have  revived 
that  old  ideal,  not  only  in  the  spirit,  but  in  the 
letter.  And  I  will  first  say  a  few  words  of  the 
most  active  founder,  and  the  best  type  of  these 
— the  hermit,  St.  Antony.^ 

1  2  Kings  i.  8,  "ITt^  ^r3  B^^K. 

«  In  the  following  sketch  of  the  facts  of  St.  Antony's  life  I 
have  made  free  use  of  Canon   Kingsley's  Hermits,  in   which 


42 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.        [serm.  ii. 


SERM.  II.] 


THE  HERMITS. 


43 


St.  Antony  was  born  of  noble  and  wealthy 
parents,  in  Egypt,  about  the  year  251.  Even  as 
a  boy  he  was  simple  and  serious  ;  and  he  and 
his  sister,  being  left  orphans  at  an  early  age, 
kept  house  together.  The  next  incident  in  his 
life  finds  its  parallel  in  other  lives  of  the  saints. 
One  day  in  church  he  was  struck  by  the  words 
of  Jesus,  "  If  thou  wilt  be  perfect,  go  sell  all 
thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor;  and  come 
follow  me  and  thou  shalt  have  treasure  in 
heaven."  Not  considering  whether  that  was  a 
special  command  or  no,  he  took  Christ  at  His 
word,  sold  his  estate  and  property,  and  gave 
all  to  the  poor,  except  a  small  amount  which 
he  retained  for  his  sister.  Once  more,  in  church, 
the  words  "  Take  no  thought  of  the  morrow," 
smote  his  conscience.  He  gave  up  the  rest  of 
what  he  had,  took  his  sister  to  a  nunnery,  and 
retired  to  the  outskirts  of  a  little  village.  There 
beloved  by  all,  he  worked  with  his  hands, 
prayed    continually,   and    learnt    the  Scriptures 

delightful  little  volume  large  parts  of  his  life  are  translated  from 
St.  Athanasius. 


(^ 


• 


<• 


by  heart.     Like  Marcus  Aurelius,  he  also  strove 
to  imitate  from  each  good  man  whom  he  met 
his    special    virtue;— from    one   his    self-denial, 
from   another   his   courtesy,   from    another    his 
charity,    from    another  his    meekness.      Some- 
times,  as  was  natural,  he  wavered;  sometimes, 
for  he   was   still   young,   he  turned  to   cast    a 
longing,  lingering   glance   at  the  life  which  he 
had    left ;    sometimes,  which   was   to   him   the 
most    painful    thing    of    all,    he    was    assailed 
by  the   sensual    impulses    of  youth.     But   by 
faith,  and  prayer,  and   fasting,  and  by  dwell- 
ing in  constant  meditation  on  the  greatness  of 
the  soul,  and  on  the  ennoblement  of  man  by 
Christ,  and  on  the  terrors  of  future  retribution, 
God   helping  him,   he   escaped.      And,  having 
thus  gained  the  victory,  one  night— for  to  these 
hermits  in  their  emaciation  and  mysticism  visions 
were  naturally  numerous— he  saw  the  evil  spirit 
cowering  at  his  feet  like  a  black  child,  who  said 
to  him,   "I  have  deceived  many,  I  have  cast 
down  many ;  but  as  in  the  case  of  many,  so  in 
thine,    I    have    been    worsted    in    the   battle." 


44 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.        [serm.  ii. 


SFRM.  II.]  THE  HERMITS. 


45 


"  Who  art  thou  ? "  asked  Antony ;  and  it 
replied  in  a  pitiable  voice,  "  I  am  the  Spirit  of 
Impurity."  "Thou  art  utterly  despicable,"  said 
Antony  ;  "  thou  art  black  of  soul  and  weak  as 
a  child  ;  nor  shall  I  henceforth  cast  one  thought 
on  thee,  for  the  Lord  is  my  helper,  and  I  shall 
despise  my  enemies"  ;  whereat  the  black  being 
fled,  vanquished  and  afraid.^ 

But  Antony  knew  far  better  than  to  suppose 
that  by  one  moment's  revival,  or  conversion,  or 
acceptance  of  a  formula  he  could  make  his  life 
an  easy  triumph  or  endless  song.  Utterly  alien 
from  these  old  fathers  was  the  promise  of  perfect 
assurance  held  out  by  some  modern  teachers  to 
one  single  paroxysm  of  overpowering  excite- 
ment. He  knew  that  the  evil  spirit  would 
return  again ;  and  therefore,  like  St.  Paul,  he 
bruised  his  body  with  blows,  and  led  it  about 
as  a  slave,^  lest,  having  conquered  in  one  case, 
he  should  be  tripped  up  in  others.  He  ate  but 
once   a  day,  and  then   bread   and   water.     He 

^  Kingsley,  p.  38. 

*  I  Cor.  ix.  27.     u^ctfTta^w  \jlo\)  t^  (retf/ita  koX  ZovXayufyut, 


f 


slept  but  little,  and  mostly  on  the  bare  ground. 
At  last  he  went  and  made  his  home  alone  in    - 
the  village  tombs.     There  he  suffered  at  once 
needlessly  and  terribly.     Nature,  in  accordance 
with  her  own  inevitable  laws,  revenged  herself  on 
a  life  which,  however  nobly  meant,  was  so  unna- 
tural in  its  conditions.     Haunted  amid  the  pangs 
of  hunger  and  the  deliriums   of  fever    by  the 
painted    imagery   of  those    immemorial   sepul- 
chres,!  in    every   physical   pang,   in   every   dis-   • 
ordered  thought,  he  seemed  to  see  the  hideous 
faces  and  feel  the  unsparing  blows   of  visible 
demons.     But  God  dealt  mercifully  with  a  life 
which  was    utterly   sincere,   and    amid    visions 
which    would   have  tempted    him   by   gold    or 
•silver,  or  hideous  noises,  or  unhallowed  thoughts, 
he  heard  holy  encouragements,  and  thrilled  with 
inward  consolations.     Supported  by  all  that  he 
believed,  undaunted  by  all  that  he  had  endured, 
at  the  age  of  thirty-five  he  retired  to  a  moun- 
tain-cave for  twenty  years  to  perfect  in  prayer 

I  This  is  Kingsley's  very  ingenious  and  probable  suggestion.— 
HermitSy  p.  42. 


46 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,        [serm.  ii. 


SERM.  II.] 


THE  HERMITS, 


47 


and  solitude  the  purity  of  his  soul.     Before  the 
,   close  of  that  period  many  inquirers  had  visited 
him,    many   who   wished    to    be    his    disciples 
gathered  around   him;    and  at   the  end  of   it, 
still  hale  and  happy,  he  came  forth,  and  after 
strengthening  martyrs  and  confessors  in  a  time 
of    persecution,    retired    once    more    into    the 
farthest   desert,   and    under  a   high    mountain, 
among  a  few  neglected  palms,  and  by  a  spring 
of  water  sweet  and  cold    in  the  midst  of  wild 
beasts  that  did  not  harm  him.  he  tilled  himself  a 
little  garden,  and  there  dwelt  in  meditation  and 
peace      Casting   out   devils,    advising   all    who 
came  to  him,  training  brethren  who  were  to  be 
his  followers,  uttering  many  a  wise  counsel,  and, 
in  the  belief  of  his  contemporaries,  working  many 
a  miracle,  he  lived  till  extreme  old  a^e,  retainino- 
his   grace  of  countenance  and  his  humility  of 
soul,  his  cheek  still  ruddy,  his  eye  undimmed, 
his    natural   force  unabated.      At  last   he   saw 
that  "  it  was  time  for  him  to  set  sail,  for  he  was 
a  hundred  and  five  years  old  "  ;  and  so  bequeath- 
ing   to    Athanasius    his   sheepskin   cloak   and 


f 


saying,  "  I   perceive  that    I    am   called  by   the 
Lord,"  he    gently,   and    sweetly,    and   humbly 

died. 

3.  Now  was  this  a  life  which  you  and  I  can 
venture  to  judge  or  to  ridicule  ?     Was  this  life, 
in  the  cave  and  the  desert,  an  absurd  life,  an 
erroneous  life,  a  superstitious  life,  a  life  utterly 
ignorant   of  what  is  the  will   of  God   towards 
man  }    Or   was  it,  with  all  its  imperfect  know- 
ledge, a   noble   and   a   worthy  life,   and    a  life 
from  the  contemplation  of  which  we  all   may 
profit,  and  a  life  which  had   learnt,  and  learnt 
worthily,  some  of  the  greatest  truths  and  prin- 
ciples which  were  taught  us  by  Christ  our  Lord  ? 
My  brethren,  small  indeed  is  the   chance   that 
any  one  of  us  will  be  tempted  to   act  in   the 
most  distant  degree  as  did   St.    Antony,  or  to 
imitate  the  hundredth  part  of  his  self-denials. 
Much   of   his   conception  of   religion,    we   may 
say  with   confidence,  was   mingled   with   error. 
He   made  Elijah  his    model,  but  of   Elijah  as 
of  St.   John  we  may  say,  as  Christ  has  taught 
us,  that  the  least  in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is 


I 


r- 


48' 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,        [serm.  ii. 


greater  than  he — greater  in  revealed  knowledge, 
richer  in  spiritual  blessings.  Antony,  it  may 
be,  failed  to  realise  that  man  is  not  born  to  live 
alone,  that  God  has  made  him  for  society,  and 
not  for  unbroken  solitude ;  that,  all  his  life 
long,  man's  duty  is  wider  than  a  care  for  the 
salvation  of  his  individual  soul ;  that,  even  in 
matters  of  religion,  selfishness  must  be  ex- 
cluded; that  love  to  our  neighbour  is  ever 
mingled  with— and  is  the  appointed  way  of 
manifesting — our  love  to  God.  We  are  but 
half-men,  the  very  best  of  us.  Antony's  view 
of  truth  was  imperfect  ;  his  ideal  of  life  one- 
sided. He  was  hampered  by  that  dangerous 
literalism  in  the  interpretation  of  Scripture 
which  has  been  so  immense  a  source  of  con- 
fusion and  error;  he  was  probably  trammeled 
by  the  dark  and  prevalent  dogma  as  to  the 
all-but-impossible  forgiveness  of  post-baptismal 
sins  ;  he  had  not  recognised  in  all  their  illimit- 
able fulness  the  truths  that  mercy  is  better 
than  sacrifice,  and  that  God  is  love.  And  yet, 
when   we   have   made   all   these  admissions,   it 


L 


SERM.  Ii.] 


THE  HERMITS, 


49 


may  remain  true  that,  because  he  was  entirely 
faithful  to  the  light  he  had,  therefore  his  life 
may  have  been  as  incomparably  superior  to 
any  shallow,  vulgar,  self-indulgent  Christianity 
that  would  condemn  him  as  the  peak  of  Chim- 
borazo  is  superior  to  the  dull,  salt  ooze  of  the 
flat  seashore.  In  the  light  of  this  truth — the 
fact  that  God  will  judge  us  by  our  sincerity, 
not  by  our  wisdom — there  vanishes  much  of 
the  perplexing  mystery  in  the  silences  of  God  ; 
much  of  our  wonder  that  He  does  not  interfere 
with — does  not  miraculously  interpose  to  illu- 
minate— whole  aeons  of  honest  ignorance  and 
convinced  error.  If  there  be  enough  of  kindly 
light  to  lead  us  on  each  step  of  life,  what 
matters  the  thickness  of  the  encircling  gloom  ? 
We  may  know  not  anything ;  it  may  turn  out 
at  last  that  many  of  our  own  thoughts  of 
God  were  as  poor  and  as  imperfect  as  have 
been  those  of  many  of  His  saints ;  but  if  we 
have  been  faithful  to  the  best  we  know,  then 
we  are  full  sure  that  He  who  died  to  redeem 
us  will  judge  us  by  the  light  we  had,  not  by 

E 


s 
» 


^  ( 


50 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.        [serm.  ii. 


SERM.  II.] 


THE  HERMITS, 


51 


the  light  we  had  not ,  that  the  Face  like  our  own 
face  will  smile  on  us  with  pardon  and  welcome, 
and  the  hand  of  Him  who  died  for  us  will  fling 
open  to  us  the  gates  of  everlasting  life. 

4.  For  whatever  may  have  been  his  theoretic 
errors  or  his  intellectual  limitations,  St.  Antony 
too,  taking  Christ  at  His  word,  found  His 
promise  true,  and  had,  like  the  martyrs,  even  in 
this  life,  his  thousandfold  reward.  If  he  lived 
in  the  wilderness  God  prepared  him  a  table  in 
the  wilderness,  and  brightened  the  barren  rocks 
with  heavenly  manna,  and  made  the  desert 
blossom  as  the  rose. 

I.  For  note  first  that,  with  all  its  privations, 
all  its  struggles,  all  its  terrors — in  spite  of  the 
loneliness  in  the  mountain-cavern  and  the 
demon-visions  in  the  painted  tomb — the  life 
of  Antony  was  a  happy  life. 

a.  It  was  happy  in  its  solitude.  It  would  not 
be  happy  to  us  ;  it  would  not  be  happy,  and 
hardly  even  possible,  to  any  man  whose  soul 
was  not  deeply  absorbed  in  things  eternal  and 
unseen.     It  is  only  the  best  men  who  know  how 


\ 


to  live,  if  need  be,  alone.  There  is,  indeed,  a 
time  in  the  life  of  almost  every  man,  "  when  the 
weight  of  existence  presses  on  fevered  nerves 
or  weary  heart,  and  they  long  for  some  refuge, 
even  on  this  side  of  death."  But  for  merely 
wearied  natures,  for  the  surfeit  of  luxury  and 
the  satiety  of  ambition,  solitude  would  be  no 
refuge.  The  disappointed  worldling,  the  w'orn- 
out  voluptuary  does  not  change  his  nature  by 
changing  the  scene  of  his  life.  "  What  exile 
from  his  country  succeeds  also  in  escaping  from 
himself.?"  asks  the  wise  Epicurean  poet.  A 
change  of  surroundings  involves  no  change  of 
inward  disposition.  The  aim  of  the  true  hermits 
was  not  to  escape  from  temptation,  but  to  train 
themselves  to  conquer  temptation.  It  was  not 
to  find  a  retreat  for  the  feeble,  but  a  training- 
place  for  the  strong.  The  motive  of  the 
dweller  in  the  Thebaid  was  not  misanthropy  or 
cynicism. 

"They  who  from  wilful  disesteem  of  life 
Affront  the  eye  of  solitude,  shall  find 
That  her  mild  nature  can  be  terrible." 

1    2 


11 


52 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.        [serm.  ii. 


SERM.  II.] 


THE  HERMITS, 


53 


But  so  far  from  such  a  disesteem  of  life,  it  was 
an  intense  conviction  of  its  awfulness  and  value 
in  the  sight  of  God,  which  was  the  mainspring 
of  action  to  an  Antony  or  an  Hilarion.  That 
depth  of  soul,  that  self-recollection,  that  stability 
of  holiest  purpose,  which  are  almost  impossible 
in  the  incessant  noise,  and  bustle,  and  hurry  of 
modern  life,  made  hours,  and  even  years,  of  soli- 
tude a  blessed  boon  to  those  whose  spiritual  life 
found  sufficient  nurture  in  meditation  upon  God, 
— in  thinking  of  **  the  days  of  old  and  the  years 
of  ancient  times."  ^  The  happiness  of  their 
solitude  sprang  from  an  intense  conviction,  and 
deepened  it.  To  Antony  the  unseen  world  was 
as  the  seen,  "Trouble  not  at  the  loss  of  thy 
bodily  eyes,"  he  said  to  a  blind  friend  ;  "  thou 
hast  the  Q.y(ts  with  which  the  angels  see,  with 

^  **  The  bearing  which  thoughts  and  studies  may  have  upon  our 
acts  is  not  enough  considered,  .  .  .  Not  pathetic  only,  but  pro- 
found also,  and  of  the  most  solid  sub>  tance,  was  that  reply  made 
by  the  old  Carthusian  monk  to  the  trifler  who  asked  him  how 
he  had  managed  to  get  through  his  life.  '  Cogitavi  dies  aniiquos 
et  annos  aeternos  in  ni  nU  hahm.'''  (Ps.  Ixxviii.  5,)— Matthew 
Arnold,  The  Great  Froplucy^  p.  xxxvi. 


which  thou  mayest  behold   God."     "For  him," 
it  has  been  said,  "  the  spiritual  world  was  one 
intense  reality.     Everywhere  he  felt  himself  face 
to  face  with  the  eternal.     What  are  to  us  figures 
were  to  him  sensible  trutlis  ;  and  he  was  strong 
because  he  felt  the  awful  grandeur  of  the  conflict 
in   which  we,  no  less  than   he,  are  engaged."' 
"  One  night,"  we  are  told,  "  he  was  thinking  of 
the  destiny  of  the  soul,  and  a  voice  came  from 
without,  *  Antony,  arise!  come  forth,  and  see.' 
And  when  he  lifted  up  his  eyes  he  beheld  a  vast 
and  hideous  shape,  reaching  to  the  clouds,  and 
other  beings,  winged,  which  strove  to  rise.     And, 
as  they   rose,  the  monster  stretched    forth   his 
hands  to  catch  them,  and  if  he  could  not,  then 
they   soared    aloft,   untroubled    for   the    future. 
And  Antony   knew  that  he   looked    upon   the 
passage   of  souls  to   heaven."     Such  were  the 
convictions   which   filled    his    solitude  with    re- 
alities, and  gave   him   power   to   be  a   teacher 
of  mankind. 

y8.   And,  as  his  life  was  happy  in  its  solitude, 

1  Westcott. 


54 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,        [serm.  ii. 


because  he  walked  by  faith  and  not  by  sight, 
so  it  was  happy  in  its  simple  healthy  conditions. 
In  the  manual  labour,  the  useful  tillage,  the 
reduction  of  life  to  its  simplest  elements 
combined  with  a  heart  which  \v«s  at  perfect 
peace  with  God,  there  was  an  element  of  health 
which  accounts  for  the.  gaiety  and  charm  in  the 
look  and  manner  of  the  first  of  the  hermits,  and 
which  made  Antony's  life  as  true  a  life  to  every 
purpose  which  he  understood,  as  any  life  which 
we  gain  from  all  our  comfort,  and  luxury,  and 
incessant  activity  and  change.  To  him  the 
busy  vanities,  and  reckless  competitions,  and 
gnawing  jealousies,  and  fretting  cares  of  these 
great  cities  would  have  been  transcendently 
more  unnatural,  would  have  had  infinitely  less 
charm,  than  the  long  nights  passed  in  such 
insatiate  prayer,  that  at  the  dawn  he  said,  "  O 
sun,  why  dost  thou  rise  already,  and  turn  me 
from  contemplating  the  splendour  of  the  True 
Light ;  "  ^ — than  the  long  days,  when,  looking 
across  the  blue  waters  of  the  Gulf  of   Akaba, 

*  Montalfinbert,  Monks  of  the  West, 


SERM.  II.] 


THE  HERMITS, 


55 


he  saw  far  away  the  granite  peaks  of  Sinai 
flaming  in  the  hot  noon,  as  though  they  were 
still  bursting  with  the  splendour  of  the  descend- 
ing Lord.  We  who  in  these  cities  rarely  see 
a  sunrise,  or  notice  a  sunset — we  who  see  so 
little  of  "the  unfolding  of  the  flower,  or  the 
falling  of  the  dew,  or  the  sleep  of  the  green 
fields  in  the  sunshine/'  can  hardly  imagine  what 
the  glory  of  nature  was  to  those  poor  hermits, 
as  day  by  day  the  gorgeous  pageant  of  the 
sunlight  passed  over  their  heads,  and  night  after 
night  *'the  stars  leapt  out,  and  hung  like  balls 
of  white  fire  in  that  purple  southern  sky."^ 
The  glories  of  nature  gave  to  their  purified 
spirits  a  high  and  constant  communion  with 
Nature's  God.2 

7.  And  if  the  life  was  happy  in  its  solitude 
and  happy  in  its  natural  simplicity,  it  was  happy 
too — when  once  the  passions  of  the  rebellious 

*  Kingsley,  p.  132. 

^  "A  philosopher  asked  Antony,  *How  art  thou  content, 
father,  since  thou  hast  not  the  comfort  of  books  ? '  Quoth 
Antony,  *  My  book  is  the  nature  of  created  things.  In  it  when 
1  choose  I  can  read  the  words  of  God.'" — Kingsley,  p.  loi. 


56 


SAINTL  Y  WORKERS.        [serm.  ii. 


flesh  were  subdued — in  its  exemption  from  many 
of  the  assaults  of  sin  "  I  have  been  assailed 
by  three  usurers,"  said  the  hermit  Serapion, 
"avarice,  sensuality,  hunger.  Of  the  first  two 
I  am  rid,  having  neither  money  nor  passions." 
And  how  characteristic  and  how  beautiful  is  such 
a  simple  anecdote  as  this !  "  Let  us  have  just 
one  quarrel,  like  other  men,"  said  one  old  hermit, 
who  had  lived  for  years  in  the  same  cell  with 
another  without  a  disagreement.  Quoth  the 
other,  "  I  do  not  know  what  a  quarrel  is  like. " 
Quoth  the  first,  "  Here,  we  will  put  this  brick 
between  us,  and  each  say  it  is  ours,  and  have 
a  squabble  over  it."  They  put  the  brick  between 
them.  **  It  is  mine,"  said  one.  **  I  hope  it  is 
mine,"  said  the  other.  "  If  it  is  yours,  take 
it,"  said  the  first ;  ^  and  so  these  two  poor  old 
men  could  not  do  what  we  find  it  so  inconceiv- 
ably easy  to  do — get  up  a  quarrel  between  them. 
Or  take  this  anecdote  : — 

A  brother  once  brought  to  St.  Macarius  a 
beautiful    cluster    of    fresh    ripe    grapes.      He 

^  King^ley,  p.  142,  from  Words  of  the  Elders, 


SERM.  II.] 


THE  HERMITS, 


57 


looked  at  them  wistfully,  but  seeing  another 
brother  at  work,  ^determined  to  give  them  to 
him.  He  too  would  have  liked  the  sweet, 
purple,  refreshing  grapes,  but  preferred  to  give 
them  to  another.  And  he  gave  them  to  another, 
and  so,  each  preferring  another's  enjoyment  to 
his  own,  they  passed  through  the  hands  of  the 
little  community,  and  were  brought  back  un- 
touched to  St.  Macarius.  And  he  (for  how 
could  he  eat  them  when  all  his  brethren  had  so 
generously  given  them  up  ?)  threw  them  far 
away.  Was  not  this  at  least  unselfishness } 
Had  not  these  men  learnt  something  }  Is  there 
nothing  noble  in  complete  superiority  to  petty 
indulgences  }  Does  not  "  the  high  desire  that 
others  may  be  blessed "  savour  of  heaven } 
Had  they  not  this  high  happiness  that  their 
whole  desires  were  subordinate  to  the  will  of 
God  1  ^     Is  the  life  we  see  around  us, — its  greed, 

^  **  A  great  theologian  once  discovered  that  a  poor  beggar  at 
the  door  of  a  church  was  a  man  of  profound  learning.  The 
beggar  said  that  he  was  perfectly  happy  ;  that  he  had  never  had  an 
enemy ;  that  he  had  never  been  unfortunate ;  and  added,  '  Hoc 


^ 


58 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.        [sfrm.  h. 


its  self-absorption,  its  indifiference  to  others,  its 
jealousies,  backbitings,  eavesdroppings,— is  it  so 
very  beautiful,  so  very  Christian  ?— is  it  so  very 
much  an  ideal  to  be  in  love  with,  that  we 
can  afford  entirely  to  look  down  on  the  strange 
lives  of  the  hermits  in  the  wilderness  ? 

5.    I  cannot  think  so.     Let  us  not  sever  our- 
selves by  any  sharp  discontinuity  from  any  class 
of  God's  children  in  the  days  of  old.     Each  age 
has  its  own  types  of  saintliness,  its  own  ideals 
of   the    best   way   of    serving   God.    No    good 
deed,  no  genuine  sacrifice,  is  ever  wasted.     If 
there   be  good   in   it,  God  will   use  it  for  His 
own  holy  purposes  ;  and  whatever  of  ignorance, 
or  weakness,  or  mistake  was  mingled  with   it, 
will   drop  away   as    the    withered    sepals    drop 
away  when  the  full  flower  has  blown.      Nor  was 
the  life  of  the  hermits  mere  individualism.     It 
was  philanthropic  also.     It  was  very  far  from 
useless ;  it  was  useful  to  their  own  days ;  useful  to 
the  days  that  were  to  follow  ;  useful  for  all  time. 

unum  volo  quod  vult  Deus,  ita  omnia  fiunt  ut  volo.'  "-K  D.Vbv 
Mores  Catholici,  i.  '      b  /i 


■ 


SERM.  II.] 


THE  HERMITS. 


59 


i.  It  was  useful  to  their  own  days.  Different 
remedies  are  required  amid  difTfering  conditions. 
What  might  in  these  times  be  absurd  or  per- 
nicious may  have  been  a  necessary  resource  in 
other  ages.  The  hermits,  let  us  remember, 
arose  during  a  period  of  terrible  confusion, 
amid  the  chaos  of  a  society  for  which  it  might 
well  have  seemed  that  the  fountains  of  the  great 
deep  were  being  broken  up.  There  lay  the 
decaying  carcase  of  the  institutions  of  the  world 
of  classic  paganism ;  and  on  every  side  was 
heard  the  flap  of  the  wings  of  the  gathering 
vultures.  If  St.  Paul  in  his  day  had,  because 
of  the  present  necessity,  recommended,  to  some 
at  least,  celibacy  rather  than  marriage,^  the 
hermits  might  well  have  deemed  that  their  own 
age  was  too  desperate  for  the  ordinary  moral 
remedies.  Art  and  science  were  dead ;  society 
had  sunk  into  utter  frivolity ;  slavery  had  assumed 
its  most  revolting  aspects ;  cruelty  and  luxury 
were  triumphant.  They  might  well  have  thought 
that  the  only  protest  which  could  be  efifectual, 

^  I  Cor.  vii.  I,  8,  26. 


6o 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.        [sfrm.  ir. 


SERM.  II.] 


THE  HERMITS, 


6l 


the  only  protest  which  would  startle  into  atten- 
tion a  dead  and  wicked  world,  would  be  one 
which  should  at  least  unmistakably  proclaim 
the  awful  dignity,  the  inestimable  value  of*  the 
individual  soul.  Merely  to  preach  purity,  and 
unworldliness,  and  charity  seemed  hopeless; 
and  therefore  they  proclaimed  the  glory  and 
the  necessity  of  these  virtues  in  the  language 
of  such  examples  as  no  human  beings  could 
misunderstand.  As  the  days  of  Ahab  needed 
an  Elijah,  as  the  days  of  Herod  needed  a  John 
Baptist,  so  the  age  of  the  successors  of  Con- 
stantine  needed,  and  were  leavened  by  an 
Antony,  an  Hilarion,  a  Macarius,  and  a  Paul. 

ii.  Nor  did  their  example  die  with  them.  To 
them  we  owe,  both  indirectly  and  directly,  the 
preservation,  in  its  purity,  of  the  Christian  faith. 
When  Athanasius  was  in  danger  of  death,  it  was 
among  the  hermits  of  the  desert  that  he  found 
safe  refuge  from  his  enemies.  It  was  Athana- 
sius who  wrote  the  biography  of  Antony.  It 
was  to  Athanasius  that  Antony  bequeathed  his 
sheepskin  cloak  ;  and  of  all  the  honours  of  his 


t 


life,   Athanasius   accounted    none   greater   than 
this — that  he  had  been  permitted  to  commune 
with   the   desert    saint.       And     St.    Basil,    too, 
and    St.    Gregory   of    Nazianzus,   the   eloquent 
maintainers    of  the   faith,    had    both  been  her- 
mits.    When  the  Emperor  Valens  sent  a  great 
officer    to   try   to   win    over   St.    Basil    to   the 
Arian  heresy,  the  saint  stood  firm.      "I  never 
met  such  boldness,"  said  the  courtier.      "  Be- 
cause   you    never  met  a   bishop,"   said    Basil. 
"This  bishop   is   above   threats,"   reported   the 
officer  to  the  emperor,  and   the  orthodoxy  of 
the  diocese  was  saved.  ^     Again,  it  was  the  life 
of  Antony  that  tended  to  the  conversion  of  St. 
Augustine,  as  you  have  already  heard.     It  was 
St.  Jerome,  a  hermit  like  Antony,  who  trans- 
lated the  Bible  into  Latin.     It  was  Telemachus, 
a  hermit  like  Antony,  who  leapt  down  into  the 
amphitheatre  at  Rome,  and,  by  his  protest  and 
martyrdom,  put  an  end  for  ever  to  its  hideous 
butcheries.     It  was  Ephrem  the  Syrian,  a  her- 
mit  like  Antony,  who,  with  his   dying  breath, 

1  Kingsley,  p.  164. 


y^i 


62 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.       [serm.  ii. 


SERM.  II.] 


THE  HERMITS. 


^i 


raised  a  needful  protest  against  slavery,  when 
he  made  the  daughter  of  the  Governor  of 
Edessa  swear  never  again  to  be  carried  in  a 
litter  by  slaves,  because  "The  neck  of  man," 
he   said,   "should    bear   no   yoke    but    that   of 

Christ."! 

iii.  And  lastly,  for  all  time,  the  hermits  have 
proved  by  actual  life,  that  perfect  purity  and 
perfect  self-denial  are  possible  for  men  ;  that 
virtue,  and  even  charity,  are  not  beyond  human 
attainment ;  that  envy,  and  hatred,  and  malice, 
and  all  uncharitableness,  and  the  base  voices 
of  scandal,  and  the  unmannerly  jostlings  in  the 
throng,  are  no  necessary  elements  of  human 
life,  but  that  men  can  live  as  they  were  meant 
to  live  together,  in  mutual  love  and  honour  ; 
that  men  can  utterly  do  without  the  things  for 
which  man  most  wildly  struggles,  and  that  men 
need  most  the  very  things  which  they  are  apt 
most  utterly  to  disregard.  They  showed  for  all 
time  that  when  any  man  stood  on  the  dignity 
of  being  simply  man — seeing  no  greatness  but 

1  Moiitalembert,  Monks  of  the  West, 


( 


such  as  he  could  attain  in  the  sight  of  God — 
he  could  be  fearless  in  all  danger,  and  could 
rise  superior  to  all  desires.  It  is  true  that  their 
high  ideal  degenerated  in  foolish  and  fanatical 
hands.  The  accidents  of  it  were  mistaken  for 
its  essence,  the  means  which  it  adopted  for  the 
end  at  which  it  aimed.  When  the  hermits  be- 
came stylites,  living  on  the  tops  of  pillars ; 
when  they  became  mere  fakeers,  "  consecrating 
ignorance,  self-torture,  and  dirt,"  the  salt  had 
lost  its  savour,  and  it  was  time  for  it  to  be 
trodden  under  foot.  The  earlier  hermits  were 
far  more  free  from  these  errors,  and  were  suffi- 
ciently enlightened  to  admit  that  their  own 
lives  were  abnormal  and  exceptional.  More 
than  one  story  of  them  shows  that  while  they 
believed  their  own  mode  of  life  to  be  eminently 
pleasing  to  God,  they  were  not  so  ignorant  or 
so  self-satisfied  as  to  imagine  that  it  was  the 
sole  method  of  aiming  at  perfection,  and  were 
well  aware  that  a  holiness  even  more  perfect 
than  their  own  was  attainable  in  "  the  common 
round  and  the  trivial  task."     A  voice  came  to 


64 


SAINTL  Y  WORKERS,       [serm.  ii. 


SERM.  II.] 


THE  HERMITS. 


65 


Antony  in  his  cell — "Thou  hast  not  yet  at- 
tained to  the  goodness  of  a  certain  currier 
who  lives  in  Alexandria."  Antony  took  his 
staff  and  went  to  see  him.  *'  Tell  me  thy 
works,  for  on  thy  account  have  I  come  out  of 
the  desert."  "I  know  not  that  I  have  done 
any  good,"  said  the  currier ;  "  and  therefore 
morning  and  night  I  say  that  this  whole  city, 
from  the  greatest  to  the  least,  will  be  sacred 
before  me."  And  when  St.  Macarius  was  told 
that  he  too  was  inferior  to  two  women  who 
lived  in  Alexandria,  he  found  that  they  were 
simply  two  good  wives,  married  to  two  brothers, 
who  had  done  their  duty,  who  had  never  quar- 
relled, and  never  spoken  one  foul,  unkind,  or 
w^orldly  word.  Thus  we  see  how  it  is  that  even 
the  least  in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  might  be 
greater  than  these:  and  it  was  needful  that 
even  these  saints  should  be  reminded  that 
great  and  noble  as  was  their  self-sacrifice,  they 
yet  lived  in  a  world  where  the  ideal  of  Christ 
was  higher  than  that  of  Elijah,  and  that  it 
was  the  Father  of  the  spirits  of  all  flesh  who 


i 


had  "  made  love  and  marriage,  and  little  chil- 
dren, and  sunshine,  and  flowers,  the  wings  of 
butterflies,  and  the  song  of  birds  ;  who  rejoices 
in  His  own  works,  and  bids  all  who  truly  rever- 
ence Him  rejoice  in  them  with  Him."^  We 
cannot  imitate  the  outer  life  of  Antony  or 
Serapion  ;  it  is  not  necessary,  it  is  not  desirable 
that  we  should ;  but  in  an  age  of  much  unbelief 
and  irreligion,  of  much  gossip  and  detraction, 
of  much  anxiety  and  corruption,  of  much  luxury 
and  greed,  we  can  learn  their  strong  horror  of 
sin  ;  their  noble  struggle  for  righteousness  ; 
their  entire  simplicity  of  character  ;  their  utter 
aloofness  from  the  mean  and  greedy  scramble 
of  the  world  ;  the  sincerity  with  which  they 
cultivated  the  duty  of  mutual  forbearance  ;  the 
duty  of  absolute  forgiveness  of  injuries  which 
they  strenuously  practised  ;  their  intense  con- 
viction that  the  life  is  more  than  meat,  and  the 
body  than  raiment.  And  as  we  learn  these 
good  lessons  we  can  hallow,  and  broaden,  and 
ratify  them   by  the  spirit  of  Him  who  sat  at 

1  Kingsley,  p.  334. 


66 


SAINTL  Y  WORKERS,       [serm.  ii. 


the  banquets  alike  of  the  Publican  and  of  the 
Pharisee;  who  took  the  little  children  in  His 
arms  and  blessed  them;  who  beautified  with  His 
presence  and  first  miracle  the  humble  marria-e 
feast  of  Cana  in  Galilee.  Whatever  other  ideals 
pass  away,  that  one  remains  in  its  unchangeable 
applicability,  in  its  infinite  and  eternal  beauty. 
The  poet  sings  : — 

"  The  old  order  changeth,  giving  place  to  the  new, 
And  God  fulfils  Himself  in  many  ways, 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world."  i 

And  another  poet  sings  : 

"The  one  remains,  the  many  change  and  pass; 
Heaven's  light  alone  remains,  earth's  shadows' flee; 
Life,  like  a  dome  of  many -coloured  glass, 
Stains  the  white  radiance  of  eternity, 
Until  death  shiver  it  to  atoms." ^ 

^^t  in  the  life  of  Christ  God  hath  fulfilled 
Himself  for  ever,  and  over  that  life  death  has 
no  power.  If  we  may  gaze  with  profit  for  a 
moment  on  God's  saints,  it  is  only,  after  all, 
because  they  dimly  reflect  the  image  of  their 

*  Tennyson.  «  Shelley. 


? 


I 


»■■ 


SERM.  II.] 


THE  HERMITS, 


67 


Saviour.  Their  example  is  only  precious  be- 
cause it  teaches  us  how  they  were  followers  of 
Him : — 

"  The  Saviour  lends  the  light  and  heat 
That  crowns  His  holy  hill; 
The  saints,  like  stars  around  His  seat,  > 
Perform  their  courses  still. 

**  The  Moon  above,  the  Church  below, 
A  wondrous  race  they  run, 
But  all  their  radiance,  all  their  glow. 
Each  borrows  of  its  Sun."  ^ 


1  Keble. 


SKRMON  III. 


THE    MONKS. 


IjT 


THE  MONKS. 


Obedience. — **  It  is  a  great  matter  to  live  in  obedience — to  be 
under  a  superior,  and  not  to  be  at  our  own  disposing." 

*' It  is  much  safer  to  obey  than  to  govern." — De  Imitatione 
Christie  I.  ix. 

Chastity, — **  What  is  the  reason  why  some  of  the  saints  were 
so  perfect  and  contemplative  ? 

•'Because  they  laboured  to  mortify  themselves  wholly  to  all 
earthly  desire,  and  therefore  they  could  with  their  whole  hearts 
fix  themselves  upon  God,  and  be  free  for  holy  retirement.  .  .   . 

"  But  let  us  lay  the  axe  to  the  root,  that,  being  free  from  pas- 
sions, we  may  find  rest  to  our  souls." — Id.  xi. 

Humility. —  "Here  no  man  can  stand  unless  he  humble  him- 
self with  his  whole  heart  for  the  love  of  God." — Id.  xvii. 


**  If  it  seem  to  you  impossible  to  keep  many  commandments, 
then  keep  only  this  one  little  commandment,  'Depart  from  evil, 
and  do  good,'  Ps.  xxxvii.  27."— Benedict  of  Anianum. 


"Nihil,  si  malus  est,  ambitiosius  monacho,  nihil  avarius 
invenitur."— Raymond  Lulli,  Concord.  Vd.  et  Nov.  Test, 
ii.  109. 


**  Quid  prodest  fratres  exire  in  eremum,  et  in  eremo  habere 
cor  Aegyptium  ?  Quid  prodest  Aegypti  ranas  vitare  et  obscenis 
delcctationibus  concrepare  ?  " — Berengar. 


72 


*'  K&p  rrlu  dxpav  (pi\oa'o<piav  d<rK^i  rwv  St  Xoiroov  diro\\vix4y<DV 
dn(\ps,  ovSffilav  KTriffT)  >  irapd  Ofy  Trappt]aiav." — ChRYSOST.  /// 
£p.  I  ad  Cor.  Horn.  25. 

**  Virgines,  viduas  et  maritatas,  quae  semel  in  Christo  lotae 
sunt,  si  non  discrepent  caeteris  operibus,  ejusdem  esse  meriti." — 
/oviniarty  i.  3, 

"Habitus  et  tonsura  modicum  confert ;  sed  mutatio  morum 
ct  integra  mortificatio  passionum  verum  faciunt  religiosum." — De 
Jmitatione  Christie  i.  17. 

"The  perfecclon  of  Christian  lyving  dothe  not  conciste  in  the 
dome  ceremonies  weryng  of  the  grey  cootte,  disgeasing  ourselfe 
after  strange  fashions,  doking  and  beckyng,  in  girding  ourselffes 
with  giirdle  full  of  knots.  .  .  .  but  the  very  iru  waye  to  please 
God  and  to  lyve  a  tru  Christian  man  wytheout  all  ypocra  ie  and 
fayned  dissimulation,  is  sincerely  declaryd  unto  us  by  our  master 
Christ e,  his  evangelists  and  apostles."— 6'«rr^W<^  of  Warden 
and  Friars  of  St,  Francis  in  Stamford, 

*'  Des  Moines,  c'est  k  dire  des  hommes  qui  ne  songeaient  k 
devenir  ni  eveques,  ni  archeveques,  ni  ^enateurs,  des  hommes 
ayant  incessament  pre>ente  la  reponse  d'un  saint  religieux  k 
I'empereur  Othon  IV.:  '  Demandez-moi  ce  qu'il  vous  plaira,' 
lui  avait  dit  I'empereur,  'et  je  vous  I'accorderai.'  .  .  .  '  La  seule 
cho  e  que  je  vous  demande,'  reprit  le  Moine,  'c'est  que  vous 
pensiez  au  salut  de  votre  ame.' "— Foisset,  Fi^  de  Lacordaire, 
p.  222. 


/ 


SERMON    III. 

THE  MONKS^ 

Gal.  II.  20. 
**  2  am  cruci fed  with  Christy  nevertheless  I  live:' 

"  Wake  again,"  so  sings  a  poet  and  a  good  man, 
whose  loss  we  still  lament  : — 

"Wake  again,  Teutonic  father  ages, 

Speak  again,  beloved  primeval  creeds  ; 
Flash,  ancestral  spirit,  from  your  pages, 
Wake  the  greedy  age  to  nobler  deeds. 

*'  Tell  us  how  of  old  our  saintly  mothers 

Schooled  themselves  by  vigil,  fast,  and  prayer, 
Learnt  to  love,  as  Jesus  loved  before  them. 

While  they  bore  the  cross  which  good  men  bear. 

"Tell  us  how  our  stout  crusading  fathers 

Fought  and  died  for  God  and  not  for  gold; 
Let  their  love,  their  fiiith,  their  boyish  daring 
Distance-mellowed,  gild  the  days  of  old. 


1  Preached  at  St.  Andrew's,  Holborn,  March  28,  1878. 


} 


r 


74 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.      [serm.  hi. 


**Tell  us  how  the  sexless  workers  thronging, 
Angel-tended,  round  the  convent  doors. 
Wrought  to  Christian  faith  and  holy  order 
Savage  hearts  alike  and  barren  moors. 

*'ye  who  built  the  Churches  where  we  worship. 
Ye  who  framed  the  laws  by  which  we  move ; 
Fathers,  long  belied  and  long  forsaken. 
Oh,  forgive  the  children  of  your  love  ! " 

And  then,  after  thus  confessing  our  culpable 
oblivion  of  those  good  and  noble  elements  which 
shone  amid  all  the  errors  and  darkness  of  the 
past,— in  order  to  show  that  it  is  not  the  passing 
form  which  we  value  or  in  any  way  desire  to 
reproduce,  but  only  the  living  spirit,  he  adds : 

** Speak  !  but  ask  us  not  to  be  as  ye  were! 
All  but  God  is  changing  day  by  day ; 
He  who  breathes  on  man  the  plastic  spirit 
Bids  us  mould  ourselves,  its  robe  of  clay. 

"Old  decays,  but  foster  new  creations; 

Bones  and  ashes  feed  the  golden  com ; 
Fresh  elixirs  wander  every  moment 
Down  the  veins  through  which  the  live  past 

Feeds  its  child,  the  live  unborn."  i 

I  quote  these  lines,  my  friends,  because  they 
express,  in  part,  the  intended   object   of  these 

^  Kingsley,  The  Saints'  Tragedy, 


k 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS. 


75 


Lenten  Lectures.     You  will  have  seen,  I  trust, 
that  I  do  not  desire  merely  to  interest  you  in 
the   goodness    of    past   ages,    though    I    would 
gladly  do  so  ;  nor  do  I  desire  in  any  way  to 
revive  old  errors  and  obsolete  institutions ;  nor 
is  it  at  all  my  purpose   to  give  you  historical 
disquisitions   void   of  moral  significance;    least 
of  all    do    I   wish   to   feed    the  vanities  of  our 
selfish  and  easy-going  natures  by  showing  how 
much  we  are  superior  to  famous  men  of  old  and 
the  fathers  who  begat  us.    No  ;  but  I  do  earnestly 
desire  that  we  should  together  catch  some  les- 
sons  from  the  past ;  that  while  we  thank  God 
for  what  we  believe  to  have  been  a  clearer  insidit 
into  His  will,  and  a  truer  ideal  of  His  service 
than   that  of  many  of  His  saintly  workers  in 
days  of  old,  we  may  yet  learn  from  them  that 
deep,     intense,    self-sacrificing    love    for    Him 
which   ought   not   only   to   shelter    them    from 
crude  and  wholesale  condemnation,  but  which 
ought  to  make  them   models  to  us  of  a  more 
burning  enthusiasm,  of  a  more  absolute  devo- 
tion, of  a  more  loving,  a  more  holy,  and  a  more 


«•;  :> 


f 


76 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.      [serm.  hi. 


spiritual  life.  We  have  seen  that  the  path  of  the 
martyrs  is  not  yet  closed  for  us,  though  we  are  not 
called  to  resist  unto  blood  ;  we  have  seen  that  we 
may  learn  something  from  the  solitude,  and  the 
simplicity,  and  the  unselfishness  of  the  hermits, 
though  our  life  is  passed  amid  crowds  of  men  ; 
let  us,  this  evening,  glance— for  it  can  be  no 
more — at  the  type  of  saintliness  produced  by 
monasticism,  and  let  us  see  whether,  while  we 
carefully  distinguish  between  that  which  was 
permanent  and  noble  in  it  and  that  which  was 
erroneous  and  evanescent,  from  that  type  too 
we  may  not  learn. 

2.  Let  me  say  at  once  that  I  believe  the  day 
of  monasticism  to  be  over.  It  did  its  work  ;  it 
fell  into  its  decay  ;  it  passed  from  poverty  to 
honour,  from  honour  to  wealth,  from  wealth  to 
vice,  and  from  vice  into  corruption.^     If  ever  it 

^  "  This  U  the  moral  of  all  human  tales, 
'Tis  but  the  same  rehearsal  of  the  past ; 
First  Freedom,  and  then  Gk)ry;  when  that  fails, 
Wealth,  Vice,  Corniption, —Barbarism  at  last; 
And  History  with  all  her  volumes  vast 
ilath  but  one  tale." 

Byron,  ChilcU  Harold, 


f 


SERM.  III.] 


T//£  MONKS, 


77 


be  revived  it  will  not  be  by  childish  external 
imitation  ;  it  will  not  be  by  playing  at  abbacy, 
or  by  wearing  girdles  and  cowls,  but  in  wholly 
different  forms,  such  as  may  be  needed  by  a 
wholly  different  age.  It  was  perhaps  the  best 
ideal  possible  in  the  times  which  called  it  forth,i 
and  that  it  answers  to  a  deep  instinct  of  the 
human  heart  is  seen  by  the  fact  that  not  Chris- 
tianity only,  but  other  religions  also,  such  as 
Buddhism,  have  counted  their  monks  by  tens 
of  thousands.  But  yet  the  institution,  under  its 
old  conditions,  was  tried  and  found  wanting. 
It  did  not  contain  in  itself  the  elements  which 
sufficed  to  preserve  it  from  ruin  and  decay. 
The  dissolution  of  the  monasteries  by  Henry 
VIII.  was  very  far  from  being  an  unmixed  evil. 
There  may  have  been — there  probably  was— 
exaggeration  and  lying  in  the  charges  brought 
against  them  ;  there  may  have  been,  there  cer- 
tainly WMS,  greed  and  cruelty  in  the  seizure 
of  their  property;  yet  that  black  book  which 
was  laid  before  Parliament  in  the  Chapter-house 

1  See  Archbishop  Trench,  Meducval  Churchy  p.  104. 


78 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,      [serm.  hi. 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS. 


79 


of  Westminster  Abbey  contained  ample  and 
damning  proof  of  the  idleness  and  the  pollution 
of  only  too  many  of  them,^  and  it  was  time  that 
the  axe  should  be  laid  at  the  root  of  blighted 
and  barren  trees.  ^  Roman  Catholic  writers 
themselves  admit  that  there  were  idlers,  there 
were  hypocrites,  there  were  debauchees,  there 
were  villains  of  the  deepest  dye  among  the  monks 
in  bad  monasteries  under  relaxed  discipline, under 
wicked  abbots,  in  the  days  of  their  decline.^ 
Long  before  the  monks  had  to  bear  the  scathing 
satire  of  Erasmus  and  Ulric  von  Hutten,  the 
great  mediaeval  painters,  and   even   the  gentle 

^  See  the  documents  of  the  Surrenders  of  the  Franciscans  at 
Stamford,  the  Convent  of  St.  Andrew's  at  Northampton,  &c. 
— Collier,  Ecclesiastical  History^  v.  1 2,  &c. 

2  See  Burnet,  Histoy  o^  the  Reformation^  part  i.  ;  Collier, 
Ecclesiastical  History^  iv.  299-308,  v.  I. 

^  "As  well  we  as  others  our  predecessors  called  religiouse 
persons  within  yonder  said  monastery,  taking  on  us  the  habite  of 
outward  vesture  of  the  said  rule,  onley  to  the  intent  to  lead 
oure  liffes  in  the  ydle  quyttnesse,  and  not  in  the  vertuose 
exercyse,  in  a  stately  estimacion,  and  not  in  obedient  humylyte, 
have  undre  the  shadowe  or  colour  of  the  said  rule  and  habite 
vaynely,  detestably,  and  al  o  ungodly,"  &c.  &c. — "Surrender  of 
St  Andrew's  Priory,  Northampton." 


Fra  Angelico  himself,  had  invariably  painted 
monks  among  the  companies  of  the  lost  ;  and 
when  Dante  wishes  to  represent  the  punishment 
of  the  hypocrites  he  describes  them  as  a  painted 
people,  walking  with  bent  heads,  watering  the 
ground  with  their  tears,  and  bending  for  all 
eternity  under  the  crushing  load  of  a  monastic 
habit, — under  brilliant  cowls  which  dazzle  the 
eye  from  afar,  but  which,  as  they  approach, 
are  seen  to  be  but  masses  of  gilded  lead.*  Bear 
in  mind,  my  brethren,  that  if  I  speak  to  you  of 
Jioly  monasteries  and  saintly  monks,  it  is  because 
these,  and  these  only,  furnish  us  with  new  ex- 
amples in  our  endeavour  to  imitate  Christ ;  and 

^  Dante,  Inferno^  xxiii : — 

"Beneath  we  met  a  tribe  bepainted  fair. 

Who,  weeping,  paced  the  round,  exceeding  slow ; 

Jaded  their  looks  and  quite  subdued  with  care. 

Cloaks  they  had  on  with  cowls,  which  from  the  brow 

Reached  to  the  eyes  ;  a  fashion  these  displayed 

Resembling  what  the  monks  at  Cologne  show. 

"With  gilt,  to  dazzling,  they  are  overlaid  : 

Within  'tis  leaden  all ;  a  weight  so  sore 

That  Frederick's  seemed  of  stubble  to  be  made. 

O  mantle  ponderous  for  evermore y 

Ford. 


8o 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,      [serm.  hi. 


not  because  we  deny  that  there  were  also  bad 
monasteries  and  abandoned  monks.  It  was  not 
a  Christian,  not  a  Catholic,  but  Voltaire  himself 
who  said  that  if  monasticism  became  vicious, 
it  was  certain  that  secular  life  has  always  been 
more  vicious ;  yet  secular  life  furnishes  us  with 
many  an  example  of  holiness,  and  it  is  for  these 
that  we  look  in  monasteries  too. 

3.  Monasticism  grew  naturally  out  of  the 
necessities  of  the  age  in  which  it  first  appeared. 
The  multitudes  who  flocked  round  hermits  like 
Antony  and  Pachomius  became  the  inevitable 
germ  of  monastic  institutions.  In  the  East  this 
type  of  life,  though  it  produced  a  Basil  and  a 
Chrysostom,  was  less  fruitful  than  in  the  West, 
and  its  meditative  silence  degenerated  soon  into 
dreamy  indolence  and  fanatical  tumult.^  But 
introduced  into  Europe  by  the  example  of  St. 
Athanasius,  and  extended  by  the  authority  of 
St.  Jerome,  it  assumed  the  manlier  and  more 
practical  type  of  rigid  duty,  regular  worship, 
and  austere  toil.      During  the  two  centuries  after 

*  See  Milman,  Latin  Christianity^  i.  409. 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS. 


81 


St.  Antony  a  different  type  of  devotion  had 
grown  up  and  awaited  its  fitting  organisation. 
The  example  of  the  early  hermits  had  been 
mainly  (as  we  have  said)  a  personal  protest 
for  the  awful  importance  of  the  individual  soul. 
The  example  of  the  monks  was  mainly  a  social 
protest  for  the  dignity  and  holiness  of  a  common 
life.  By  the  close  of  the  fifth  century  the  wild 
bands  of  Gothic  barbarians  were  shattering  the 
political  fabric  of  the  Empire  to  pieces.  Amid 
homeless  men,  amid  depopulated  provinces, 
amid  perishing  institutions,  amid  the  rising 
deluges  of  heathenism  and  barbarity,  "A  type 
of  common  life,"  it  has  been  said,  "  was  needed 
to  preserve  the  inheritance  of  the  old  world  and 
to  offer  a  rallying  point  for  the  Christian  forces 
that  should  fashion  the  new.  Again  this  type 
was   found   in   a  system  of  rigid   discipline."  ^ 


'  Westcott,  Sermon  on  Disciplined  Life.  See  De  Broglie, 
L' Aj^iise  et  r  Empirey  vi.  471.  "Confusion,  corruption,  despair, 
and  death  were  everywhere  ;  social  dismemberment  seemed  com- 
plete. Authority,  morals,  arts,  sciences,  religin  herself  might 
have  seemed  condemned  to  irremediable  ruin."— Montalembert, 
Monks  0/ the  IVesty  ii.  p.  I.     (EngU.>h  Translation.) 

G 


82 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,      [serm.  hi. 


II 


What  was  it  that  had  preserved  the  best 
elements  of  Christianity  in  the  fourth  century  ? 
The  self-sacrifice  of  the  hermits.  What  was  it 
which  saved  the  principles  of  law,  and  order, 
and  civilisation  ?  What  rescued  the  wreck  of 
ancient  literature  from  the  universal  conflaGrra- 
tion  ?  What  restrained,  what  converted  the  in- 
rushing  Teutonic  races  ?  What  kept  alive  the 
dying  embers  of  science  ?  What  fanned  into  a 
flame  the  white  ashes  of  art  ?  What  redeemed 
waste  lands,  cleared  forests,  drained  fens,  pro- 
tected miserable  populations,  encouraged  free 
labour,  equalised  widely-separated  ranks  ?  What 
was  the  sole  witness  for  the  cause  of  charity, 
the  sole  preservative  of  even  partial  education, 
the  sole  rampart  against  intolerable  oppression  ? 
What  force  was  left  which  could  alone  humble 
the  haughty  by  the  courage  which  is  inspired 
by  superiority  to  those  things  which  most  men 
desire,  and  elevate  the  poor  by  the  spectacle 
of  a  poverty  at  once  voluntary  and  powerful  ? 
What  weak  and  unarmed  power  alone  retained 
the  strength  and  the  determination  to  dash  down 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS. 


83 


^ 


the   mailed   hand    of    the  baron  when    it   was 
uplifted  against  his  serf,  to  proclaim  a  truce  of 
God  between  warring  violences,    and  to  make 
insolent  wickedness    tremble    by    asserting   the 
inherent  supremacy  of  goodness  over  transgres- 
sion,   of    knowledge    over   ignorance,    of    quiet 
righteousness  over  brutal  force  }     You  will  say 
the  Church  ;  you  will  say  Christianity.  1     Yes,  but 
for  many  a  long  century  the  very  bulwarks  and 
ramparts  of  the  Church  were  the   monasteries, 
and  the  one  invincible  force  of  the   Church  lay 
in  the  self-sacrifice,  the  holiness,  the  courage  of 
the   monks.2     Let  those  who  have  nothing  but 
blind   anathemas   against   monasticism    remem- 
ber that  to  it  we  owe  the  light  of  liberty  and 
of  literature  ;  that  there  "  learning  trimmed  her 
lamp   and    contemplation    pruned   her  wings;'* 
that  the  Benedictines  instituted  schools;  that  the 
Augustinians  built  cathedrals ;  that  the  Mendi- 

»  The  work  achieved  for  civili'  ation  by  the  Catholic  Church 
has  been  scaled  by  no  one  more  forcibly  than  by  Comte,  Politiqiie 
Posiiive.     See,  too,  Montalembert,  Monks  of  the  IVest,  i.  275— 

283. 

*  See  Milman,  La/in  Christianity ,  i.  5,  6,  250. 

G   2 


H 


SAINTL  Y  WORKERS.      [serm.  hi. 


cant  Orders  founded  hospitals  ;  that,  as  Leibnitz 
says,  "  He  who  is  ignorant  of,  or  despises,  their 
services  has  only  a  narrow  and  vulgar  idea  of 
virtue,  and  stupidly  believes  that  he  has  fulfilled 
all  his  duties  towards  God  by  some  habitual 
practices  accomplished  with  that  coldness  which 
excludes  zeal  and  love.'* 

4.   Now  he  who  gave  to  monasticism  its  best 
and  most  permanent  form  was  St.  Benedict  of 
Nnrsia.^     His  story  is  briefly  this.     When   he 
was  a  child  his  parents  took  him  to  be  educated 
at  Rome.      Disgusted  to  the  heart's  core  by  the 
pollutions  he  saw  around    him,  at   the   age   of 
fourteen  he  fled  from  Rome  and  hid  himself  in 
a  cave  at  Subiaco,  among  the  woods  on  a  wild 
hillside  over  the   foaming  waters  of  the   Anio. 
He  was  supported  with  bread  by  a  monk  named 
Romanus,  and   there  he  strove  to  subdue  every 
evil  impulse  in  stern  solitude  and  prayer.     The 
place  overlooked  an  old  palace  of  Nero,  and  the 

1  See  the  sl<etches  of  him   in  Montalembcrt,  Monks  of  the 
West,\s.;    Milman,    Latin    C^r;>//«„//^,  i.  4,4_426 ;  Bossuet, 
Pani^'rique  de  St.  BenoU,  &c. 


t 


•J: 


I 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS. 


85 


holy  self-devotion  of  the  Christian  boy,  compared 
to  the  enormous  infamies  of  the  pagan  emperor, 
illustrate   the   vastness   of  the   chasm    between 
heathenism     and     Christianity.      Gradually    he 
was   discovered,   and    disciples  flocked  to  him. 
A  body  of  monks,  revering  his  sanctity  and  dis- 
regarding his  warning  that  his   rule  would  be 
very    strict,    compelled    him    to    become    their 
abbot  ;     but    they    soon    grew    weary    of    his 
rigorous  severity,  and  afterwards  attempted  to 
poison  him.      Seeing  that  they  were  irreclaim- 
able   he    left    them,    and    again    retired    from 
them   to   his   cave,    round   which   twelve    com- 
munities soon   sprang  up  under  his  direction. 
But  still  pursued   by  hatred  and   plots,  he  left 
Subiaco  and  retired  to  an  old  temple  and  grove 
of  Apollo,  which,   under  his  influence,  the  still 
semi-pagan  rustics  pulled  down  and  destroyed. 
There,  holy  and  happy,— allowing  himself  once 
a  year  to  spend  a  day  with  his  sister  Scholas- 
tica,  who  had    formed   near  him  a  community 
of  nuns, — he  lived  for  many  years.     And  from 
the   Life   of  him   by   St.  Gregory — the  saintly 


ii 


86 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,      [skrm.  hi. 


biography  of  a  saint — take  but  this  one  cha- 
racteristic story.  One  night,  just  before  the 
evening  hymns,  as  he  was  gazing  on  heaven 
from  the  window  of  his  cell,  a  mystic  light 
shone  round  about  him,  and  the  whole  world  was 
brought  before  him,  as  if  it  had  been  gathered 
up  into  one  ray  of  sunlight.  He  saw  it — says 
the  inscription  which  is  read  to  this  day  on  the 
tower  in  which  he  dwelt  at  Monte  Cassino — 
"  Inspexit  et  dcspexit " — "  He  saw  it  and  he 
scorned  it."^  The  story  of  his  interview  with 
Totila  the  Goth,  and  the  influence  he  exercised 
over  the  mind  of  that  stern  conqueror,  shows 
the  ascendency  which  he  had  acquired  by  his 
personal  holiness.  It  was  at  Monte  Cassino 
that  he  drew  up  the  immortal  rule  of  the 
Benedictines  ;  and  the  monastery  which  he 
founded  became  one  of  the  most  famous  in 
the  world. 

5.  The  keynote  of  that  immortal  rule,  to 
which  is  due  a  very  large  part  of  the  vast 
services   rendered   to   the   world    by   true    and 

^  Discourse  par  le  Pere  Hyacinthe. 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS, 


87 


uncorrupted  monasticism,  is  self-abnegation. 
"Antony,"  it  has  been  admirably  said,  "had 
shown  the  foundation  of  individual  freedom  in 
self-conquest  ;  St.  Benedict  showed  the  founda- 
tions of  social  freedom  in  self-surrender."  That 
perfect  obedience  means  perfect  liberty  ;  that  to 
lose  our  lives  for  Christ's  sake  is  to  find  them 
that  complete  submission  to  the  will  of  God  is 
a  serene  and  tranquil  empire  over  ourselves  ; — 
these  were  his  leading  conceptions.  Poverty, 
chastity,  obedience  had  always  been  the  triple 
vow  of  the  monk — poverty  in  ages  which  were 
dying  of  opulence  ;  chastity  in  an  age  weakened 
by  orgies  ;  obedience  in  an  age  perishing  of 
disorders.^  But  to  these  St.  Benedict  added 
Work  and  Prayer.  "  Ora  et  labora  "  was  the  rule 
of  his  followers.  It  was  Work,  whether  in  the 
form  of  handicraft  or  study,  which  rescued  so 
many  a  noble  ancient  poem  and  history  from 
oblivion,^  and   made   so  many  a  waste  into  a 

*  Ozanam,  Etudes  Germaniques. 

*  Literary  labour  was  mainly  introduced  among  the  Benedic- 
tines by  Cassiodonis. — Gieseler  ii.  13. 


8S 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.      [sfrm.  in, 


fruitful  land.  It  was  Prayer  which  inspired  so 
many  a  hope  amid  the  general  despondency; 
which  re-conquered  Europe  into  Christianity 
from  the  invading  barbarians,  which  brouizht 
down  the  dew  of  God's  blessing  upon  the 
fainting  world.  To  them  we  owe  the  preser- 
vation of  Roman  literature,  for  the  copyists  of 
manuscripts  were  Benedictine  monks.  To  them 
we  owe  our  English  Christianity,  for  Augustine 
of  Canterbury  was  a  Benedictine  monk.  To 
them  we  owe  no  small  part  of  the  protest  which 
saved  us  from  irresponsible  despotism,  for  Lan- 
franc  and  Anselm  were  Benedictine  monks. 
And  very  noble  in  its  theory,  very  beautiful  in 
its  realisation  of  social  life,  was  a  Benedictine 
monastery  under  a  holy  abbot,  faithful  to  its 
principles  and  vows.  Equality  reigned  there  : 
the  proudest  noble  who  came  as  a  novice  had 
to  serve  like  the  humblest  peasant.  Brotherhood 
reigned  there  :  the  rule  was,  "  Submit  yourselves 
to  one  another  in  the  fear  of  God."  Tenderness 
reigned  there,  for  "There  is  always  something," 
said    St.    Benedict,   "to  which  the  strong  may 


1'  i 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS, 


89 


aspire,  and  from  which  the  w^eak  may  not 
shrink."  Humility  reigned  there,  for  if  any 
one  were  appointed  to  even  the  humblest 
office,  he  had  to  fall  on  his  knees  before 
his  brethren  and  beg  their  prayers,  always  * 
ending  his  work  with  the  words,  "  Blessed 
art  thou,  O  Lord,  who  hast  holpen  me  and 
comforted  me."  Charity  reigned  there,  for 
morning  and  evening  the  Lord's  Prayer  had  to 
be  said  in  the  hearing  of  all,  that  all  alike, 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  petition,  that  we 
may  be  fo-given  as  we  forgive,  "  might  cleanse 
themselves  from  every  offence  against  Christian 
love." 

I  am  told,  my  brethren,  that  some  of  you 
yearn  to  find  some  receipt  for  unity  and  peace. 
May  you  not  be  helped  in  the  endeavour  to 
obtain  these  Christian  graces  by  some  of  those 
principles  which  made  niany  a  monastery  a  scene 
of  order  and  holiness  }  You  cannot  and  ought  not 
to  copy  the  monasticism  of  the  monks,  but  you 
can  and  ought  to  copy  this  their  ideal  of  brother- 
hood and  tenderness,  of  humility  and  charity, 


-X 


ij 


90 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.      [serm.  hi. 


of  work  and  prayer.     "  The  Kingdom  of  God," 
said  the  brave   and  good  St.  Hugo  of  Avalon, 
"  is  not  made  up  of  monks  and  hermits.      God 
at  the   Day  of  Judgment  will  not  ask  a  man 
why  he  has  not  been  a  monk,  but  why  he  has 
not  been    a    Christian.       Charity  in    the  heart, 
truth  on  the  tongue,  chastity  in  the  body,  are 
the  virtues  which   God   demands."  ^     Some   of 
you,   in  God's   providence,  are   called  upon  to 
live  together  in  communities.      Celibacy,  which 
was  to  the  monks  a  voluntary   surrender,  is  to 
thousands   of  young   men    and    young   women, 
for    long  years    together,    an    inevitable   duty, 
imposed  by  God  Himself.      May  not  the  yoke 
be  lighter  and  easier  if  it  be  borne  \x\  the  spirit 
of  cheerful    submission    and    humble   self-sacri- 
fice.?     Can  you  see  nothing  to  hallow  the  lot 
to   which    God  has    called  you    in    the  rules  of 
St.  Benedict }     Can  you  see  no  desire  to  imitate 
Christ  in  the  unmurmuring  and  willing  poverty 
which,  in  resigning  all  that  was  superfluous,  was 
spared  all  anxiety  about  what  was   necessary  .^^ 

^  Froude,  Short  Studies,  ii.  70. 


4 


,^ 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS. 


91 


Do  you  find  nothing  instructive  in  the  state 
where  "  correction  had  all  its  firmness,  con- 
descension all  its  charity,  subjection  all  its 
repose  >  where  strength  had  its  exercise,  and 
weakness  its  support }  where  silence  had  its 
gravity,  and  words  their  grace  .^"^  Might  you 
not,  if  you  tried  to  carry  out  these  principles 
in  your  own  families,  in  your  own  social  sur- 
roundings, have  all  that  was  really  holy  and 
precious  in  monasticism  without  its  perils } 
Might  you  not  gain  some  of  that  peaceful  calm, 
that  noble  gravity,  that  natural  elevation  which 
we  admire  in  the  pictures  of  the  monks  }  Might 
you  not  even  learn  to  say  with  St.  Bernard, 
"Oh,  merciful  God,  what  consolations  Thou 
preparest  for  the  poor!"^  Might  you  not  so 
adorn  with  the  Christian  graces  and  virtues  your 
home,  or  your  place  of  business,  as  to  be  able 
to  say  of  it  what  he  said  of  his  monastery, 
"  It  is  good  for  us  to  be  here  ;  for  here  a  man 
lives  more  purely,  falls  more  rarely,  rises  more 

*  Bossuet. 

•  "  Deus  bone,  quanta  pauperibus  procuras  solatia  ! " 


92 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,      [serm.  m. 


swiftly,   walks   more   carefully,   rests    more    se- 
curely,   dies    more    happily,    is   cleansed    more 
speedily,  is  rewarded  more  abundantly"?    Cowls, 
and   girdles,    and    distinctive   dresses    would    in 
these  days  be  a  futile  anachronism  ;  but   I  do 
believe   that    the   scores    of    young    men    and 
young    women    who,    in    the    complexities    of 
modern  civilisation,  and  the  necessities  of  com- 
mercial life,  live  together  in  large  communities, 
might  learn  many  a  holy  and  beautiful   lesson 
from   the   ideal   of  monastic   holiness   and   yet 
might    escape  the  peril    of   falling  into  one  of 
its   theoretic  errors,  or  of  adopting   one  of  its 
needless   and    unnatural    restrictions.      No   aire 
has  ever  more  needed   a   form  of  happy  com- 
mon   life    than    our   own,    and    I    can    imagine 
that  thousands  of  young  people  would  be  the 
brighter  and  the  holier  by  openly  recognising 
some   broad    and    simple   religious    rule, — some 
rule  broad  and  simple  as  that  which  regulated 
the    communities    of    the  early    Christians,— as 
the  bond  of  union  between  them.     What  but 
good  could  possibly  result  from  the  open  and 


SERM.   III.] 


THE  MONKS, 


93 


common  recognition  of  such  plain  Christian 
principles  as  these  from  the  rule  of  St.  Bene- 
dict }  1  '•  There  is  a  good  zeal  which  separates 
from  vice  and  leads  to  God  and  to  eternal  life.  .  .  . 
Let  the  brethren  exercise  their  zeal  with  fervent 
love ;  let  them  honour  each  other  mutually ;  let 
no  one  follow  what  he  judges  needful  to  himself 
only,  but  rather  what  is  useful  to  others;  let 
them  cherish  fraternal  love  ;  let  them  fear  God  ; 
let  them  love  their  abbots  with  sincere  and 
humble  charity ;  above  all,  let  them  prefer  no- 
thing to  Christ,  who  shall  lead  us  to  eternal  life. 
Amen. "  What  but  good  could  result  from  the 
endeavour  to  promote  the  three  Benedictine 
virtues  of  silence,  humility,  and  obedience }  and 
the  three  Benedictine  occupations  of  worship, 
reading,  and  labour  }  There  is  surely  many  a 
house  of  business  where,  without  any  formality, 
without  any  externalism,  without  the  faintest 
tinge  of  Pharisaic  hypocrisy,  or  sectarian  self- 
importance,  they  who  love  the  Lord  might 
thus  often  commune  with  one  another  ;    might 

*  Cap.  72;  Milman,  Latin  Chrislianityy  i.  421. 


■■'^, 


94 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,      [serm.  hi. 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS. 


95 


warn  and    comfort  one  another,  amid  the  sor- 
rows and  temptations  which  beset  the  path  of 
life;  might  speak  the  truth  to  each  other  with 
pure  and  simple  hearts ;  might  keep  alive  that 
sense  of  union  which  ought  to  result  from  an 
identity   of    duties    and    hopes.i      The    results 
might  be  small  at  first,  but  they  would  be  very 
blessed.     Count  Zinzendorf,  the  founder  of  the 
Moravians,  even  when  he  was  a  boy  at  school, 
founded  a  little  society,  which  he  called   "The 
order   of  the   grain    of  mustard-seed,"   and    of 
which   the   only    badge    was   a   gold    ring,    in- 
scribed with  the  words,  "  None  of  us  liveth    to 
himself"  2     Did  not  that  grain  of  mustard-seed 
grow,  in  due  course  of  time,  into  a  great  tree, 
so  that  the  fowls  of  the  air  took  shelter  among 
its  branches } 

6.  And,  my  brethren,  as  we  may  thus  learn 
from  this  byegone  type  of  saintly  workers  in 
their  social  life,  in  the  principles  (that  is)  which 

*  See  Lacordaire,  Correspond.  Inidite. 

a  By  way  of  giving  form  to  this  sugj^estion  I  print  as  an 
appendix  the  very  simple  ndes  of  a  Society  of  Christian  Progress 
which  has  been  formed  within  my  own  parish. 


?.*-.' 


guided  them  as   members  of  a  community,— so 

most  assuredly  we  may  sit  at  the  feet  of  very 

many  of  them  in  their  individual  holiness,  and 

learn  from  them  how  better  and  more  truly  to 

follow  Christ  our  Lord.     We  may  find  warmth 

in  their  footsteps,  as  faint  and  weary,  and  with 

many  a  sad  stumble,  we  follow  them  across  the 

sad  world's  snow.      "  Languor  was  not  in  their 

hearts,  nor  weakness  in  their  words,  nor  weari- 
ness on  their  brows." 

**  Servants  of  God  !  or  sons 
Shall  I  rot  call  you?  because 
Not  as  servants  ye  knew 
Your  Father's  innermost  mind — 
His  who  unwillingly  sees 
One  of  His  little  rnes  lost." 

It  would  be  quite  impossible  to  call  before 
you  the  multitudes  of  noble  figures  with  white 
robes  and  palms  in  their  hands  which  would 
arise  at  the  bidding  of  a  student  of  history. 
Shall  it  be  St,  Ansclm,  after  his  stormy  yet 
noble  archiepiscopate,  in  his  hour  of  death, 
like  the  humblest  brother  of  his  old  monastery 
at   Bee,   laid   on   sackcloth,   over    which    were 


96 


SAINTL  V  WORKERS.      [skrm.  hi. 


SERM.  HI.] 


THE  MONKS. 


97 


strewed  ashes  in  the  shape  of  the  cross,  and  so, 
amid  prayers  and  low  chants,  and  fervent  bless- 
ings  calmly   and    happily    breathing    his    last 
among  his   weeping  friends?     Shall   it    be    5/. 
Edmund  of  Canterbury,  with  the   pallor  of  his 
beautiful   countenance  "growing  a   fair  shining 
red,"  as  he  spoke  in  his  lecture-room  at  Oxford 
of  God  and  holy  things ;  or  as  he  sprinkled  with 
dust  the  few  coins,  his  sole  possession,  which 
lay  loose  in   his  window-sill, — saying  ashes   to 
ashes,  dust  to  dust }     Or  shall  it  be  St.   Thomas 
Aquinas,  w^ith   his  daily  prayer,  "Give  me,  O 
Lord,  a  noble  heart,  which  no  earthly  affection 
can  drag  down  ? "  Or  shall  it  be  St.  Bonaveiitura 
pointing  in  silence  to  his  crucifix,  when  he  was 
asked  the  source  of  his  vast  learning;  and  found 
washing  the  meanest  vessels  of  his   monastery, 
when  they  brought  him  the  hat  of  a  cardinal 
from   Rome  ?     Or  shall  it  be  St.  Bernardin  of 
Siena,  whose  pure  and  modest  presence,  even 
as  a  boy,  hushed  and  overawed  at  once  every 
evil  word  of  his  companions  >.     Or  shall  it  be  a 
ruler  like  Gregory  tlie  Great,  the  son  of  a  poor 


L 


carpenter,  yet  towering  so  high  in  the  might  of 
conscious  integrity, — so  utterly  superior  to  the 
world  by  complete  indifference  to  its  interests, — 
that  the  guilty  Emperor  of  Germany  cowered  in 
terror  before  his  look,  and  at  his  feet  >.  Or  St, 
Bernard  of  Clain^aux,  rebuking  princes,  uphold- 
ing popes,  firing  all  Europe  to  a  new  crusade, 
living  in  utter  poverty,  daily  asking  himself  the 
stem  question,  ''  Bernarde,  ad  quid  venisti?" 
"  Bernard,  wherefore  art  thou  here  ? "  These  are 
but  stray  gleams  from  lives  of  steady  radiance. 
But  go  into  our  National  Gallery,  or  any  great 
collection  of  pictures,  and  there — for  amid  the 
dust  and  weariness  of  life  it  is  well  to  refresh 
our  souls  with  things  holy  and  beautiful — gaze  on 
the  pictures  of  Fra  Angelico  of  Fiesolc,  if  you 
would  see  the  heavenly  calm  of  spirit  to  which 
some  of  the  monks  attained.  //  beato — as  he  is 
often  called,  for  he  was  never  canonised — was  a 
monk  of  that  famous  monastery  of  San  Marco, 
at  Florence,  which,  at  the  same  epoch,  also  sent 
forth  the  eloquent,  fiery,  undaunted  Savonarola, 
to  thunder  his  impassioned  denunciations  against 

H 


^  >^ 


-f 


98 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,      [serm.  hi. 


the  gross  corruptions  of  the  Church  and  of  the 
world.  In  every  cell  of  that  monastery  of  San  . 
Marco  is  painted  a  crucifixion,  by  this  holy 
painter.  He  painted  thern  on  his  knees,  and 
with  streaming  tears.  Never  would  he  receive 
one  penny  for  them.  Never  would  he  alter  a 
line  when  once  painted,  for  he  painted  the  faces 
of  his  visions,  and  looked  on  them  as  sent  by 
inspiration.  And  inspired,  indeed,  they  were, 
by  the  spirit  of  holy  love  ;  by  the  stainless 
purity  of  a  life  which  turned  to  the  Divine  as  a 
flower  to  the  sunlight  ;  by  the  calm,  unsullied 
innocence  of  one  whose  soul  was  as  a  weaned 
child.  Look  at  the  tender  rose,  and  gold,  and 
violet — the  delicate  springtide  colourings  of  his 
pictures  ;--look  at  the  angelic  and  saintly  faces, 
so  untroubled,  so  unlike  those  around  us — pure 
and  bright  as  the  blue  of  heaven  when  there  is  not 
one  cloud  to  stain  it  ;--look  at  the  rapt,  exquisite 
devotion,  radiating  outward  as  from  an  inward 
flame,  which  pervades  the  whole  canvas  as  with  a 
subtle  lambency  like  the  atmosphere  of  paradise. 
Alike  the  Sinaitic  thundcrings  of  Savonarola, 


s£rm.  In.] 


THE  MONKS. 


99 


Ail 


< 


and  the  "  soft,  silent  pictures  "  of  Fra  Angelico 
were  the  outcome  of  life  in  that  monastic  self- 
sacrifice.       It    was    the    self-discipline    of    the 
monkish  cell  which  fired    the    indignation    and 
strengthened  the  courage  of  the  one  to  face  the 
storms  of  hatred  and  the  agonies  of  martyrdom. 
It  was  the    self-discipline  of  the    monkish  cell 
which    made   the   other   so    despise   the   world 
that,— wholly  dead  to  rank  and    ambition,— he 
refused    the    Archbishopric    of    Florence,    and 
nominated  a  brother  monk  instead,  who  in  his 
turn  became  the  best  and  holiest  Archbishop  by 
whom  Florence  had  ever  been  ruled.     And  how 
came  it  that  types  of  virtue  so  different — the  one 
so  magnificent  in  its  power  and  fearlessness,  the 
other  so   perfect   in    its   love  and  peace— were 
fostered  in  the  same  cloistral  shade  t     It  came, 
my  brethren,  from  what  Milton  called  "  the  un- 
resistible  might  of  weakness  which  shakes  the 
world  ;"  it  came  from  the  indefinite  fruitfulness 
of  self-sacrifice  ;  it  came  from  that  spiritual  force 
of  chastity,  of  self-denial,  "  which  knows  how  to 
weep,  to    pray,  to   love ;   which  knows   how  to 

li   2 


lOO 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,      [srrm.  hi. 


be  poor,  unknown,  despised ;  harder  than  a 
diamond  against  pride  and  corruption ;  more 
tender  than  a  mother  towards  all  that  suffers 
and  that  seeks."  ^ 

7.  It  was  a  monk,  my  brethren,  and  one  who 
may  perhaps  be  called  in  some  sense  the  last 
of  the  monks — it  was  Henri  Lacordaire — who 
wrote  those  last  words.  It  was  a  man  who 
died,  as  it  were,  but  yesterday — whom  some  of 
us  may  have  seen  and  heard — who  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  French  National  Assembly ;  who 
was  by  far  the  most  eloquent  man  of  his  day ; 
who  first  reintroduced  into  France,  and  even 
into  the  pulpit  of  Notre  Dame,  the  black-and- 
white  robe  of  the  Dominicans,  which  had  not 
been  seen  there  for  years.  And  it  is  a  charac- 
teristic of  his  stern  self-discipline  that  always, 
after  those  splendid  conferences,  in  which  he 
thrilled  the  universal  heart  of  Paris  with  his 
eloquence,  and  held  its  subtlest  intellects  en- 
tranced, he  inflicted  stern  penance  upon  him- 
self to  prevent  every  possible  access  of  vanity, 

1  Lacordaire  ^Life^  by  Dora  GreenwcU,  p.  12). 


SERM.  in.] 


THE  MONKS, 


lOI 


and  was  found  on  one  occasion  hanging  upon 
a   cross   in  the  crypt   below.      Now  this    great 
preacher,  and  pre-eminently  good  man,  was  no 
devotee  of  obsolete  fanaticism  ;  he  was  a  child 
of  this  nineteenth  century.      He  was  a  Liberal 
in  politics  ;  he  was  elected  as  a  Liberal  to  re- 
present a  French  constituency;  he  said  on  his 
deathbed  :    "  I   die  a  penitent  Catholic  and  an 
impenitent   Liberal."      Yet   his   ideal  of  saint- 
lincss     was    the     ideal    of   the     monk.       With 
the    famous    Dc    Lammenais   and    the    Comte 
de    Montalembert    he   had   edited   LAvenir,  a 
Liberal   newspaper,   and  when   this   fell   under 
the   suspicion   of  the  authorities   at    Rome,   he 
went  with   his   companions   to   submit   himself 
to  the  verdict  of  the  Pope.     After  many  delays 
and  humiliations  that  verdict  was  given,  and  to 
his  crushing   sorrow   it   was   hostile.       But   the 
spirit  of  holy  obedience  was    strong    in    Henri 
Lacordaire.        He    made  the  submission   which 
perhaps  costs  a  man  most  dear — he  submitted 
his    intellect    itself       More    than    that,   at    the 
zenith  of  his   fame,    in   the   fullest   power   and 


i'^  -^ij'* 


I02 


SAINTL  V  WORKERS,      [serm.  hi. 


splendour  of  his  thrilling  rhetoric, — he  deter- 
mined to  hide  his  head  under  the  cowl  of  a 
Dominican,  and,  if  possible,  reintroduce  the 
monastic  orders  into  France.  The  resolve 
seized  him  as  he  walked  amid  the  ruined 
magnificence  of  ancient  Rome,  and  thought 
of  Antony,  Basil,  Augustine,  Martin,  Benedict, 
Columban,  Bernard,  Francis,  Dominic,  Ignatius. 
"  In  considering  this  luminous  track,"  he  says, 
"  the  milky  way  of  the  Church,  I  discovered 
its  creative  principle  in  the  threefold  vow  of 
poverty,  chastity,  and  obedience  the  keystone 
of  the  arch  of  the  Gospel,  and  of  the  perfect 
imitation  of  Jesus  Christ."  The  world  was 
amazed  at  his  determination  ;  amazed  and 
half  incredulous  that  a  man  should  thus  be 
willing  to  efface  himself;  should  thus  have  the 
noble  desire  to  descend.^  But  his  friends  were 
not  amazed.  One  of  the  greatest  of  them  ^ 
had  walked   home  with  him  along  the  streets 

1  "II  faut  savoir  descendre  devant  Ics  hommes  pour  s'elevcr 
devant  Dieu."— Foisset,  Vie  de  Lacordaire,  ii.  143. 
*  The  Comte  de  Mvnitalembert. 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS. 


103 


of  Paris,  after  one  of  the  most  signal  triumphs 
of  his  oratory  over  a  hostile  audience.  "  He 
was  neither  intoxicated  by  it,"  he  writes,  "  nor 
overwhelmed.  I  saw  that  for  him  these  little 
vanities  of  success  were  less  than  nothino-— 
dust  in  the  night. "  So,  giving  up  all,  Lacordaire 
became  a  monk ;  and  Rome,  following  her  usual 
policy,  did  not  spare  his  sensibilities.  She  tested 
his  sincerity  to  the  very  utmost.  She  did  not 
leave  him  with  his  companions;  she  did  not 
place  him  in  cities.  She  sent  the  greatest 
orator  whom  the  Church  of  France  has  pro- 
duced since  the  days  of  the  immortal  Bossuet, 
as  a  humble  novice  to  the  distant  monastery  of 
La  Ouercia.  And  here  is  his  own  account  of 
it :  '  It  is  now  eight  days  since  I  became  a 
monk.  I  have  been  four  days  at  La  Ouercia. 
After  a  little  speech  from  the  Provincial,  each 
withdrew  to  his  cell.  It  was  very  cold  ;  the 
wind  had  veered  to  the  north.  We  were  yet 
in  our  summer  dress,  and  our  cells  without 
fires.  We  knew  no  one ;  all  the  prestige,  all 
the  empresseinent  which  so  recently  surrounded 


I04 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,      [serm.  in. 


us,  had  vanished.  We  were  alone  with  God, 
in  presence  of  a  life  as  yet  unknown  to  us. 
Next  day  the  cold  was  still  more  intense,  and 
we  only  partially  understood  the  course  of  our 
exercises.  I  had  a  moment  of  weakness.  I 
looked  back  on  all  that  I  had  left  behind — a 
settled  life,  many  certain  advantages,  many 
tenderly-loved  friends;  days  filled  with  useful 
conversations  by  warm  firesides;  the  thousand 
joys  of  a  life  which  God  had  blessed  with  out- 
ward and  inward  peace.  To  lose  all  this  for 
ever  was  certainly  paying  very  dear  for  the 
pride  of  doing  a  bold  thing.  I  humbled  my- 
self before  God,  and  asked  of  Him  the  strength 
I  needed.  Toward  the  clos'e  of  the  first  day  I 
felt  that  my  prayer  had  been  heard,  and  since 
then  His  consolations  have  been  increasing  on 
my  soul  with  the  gentleness  of  a  sea  that 
caresses  the  shore  it  covers.'" 

My  brethren,  according  to  our  notions  the 
sacrifice  may  have  been  needless  ;  we  may 
fancy  that  he  might  have  found  better  methods 
of  obtaining  the  same  high  end  ;  but  let  us  be 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS. 


105 


certain  of  this,  that  no  genuine  and  honest  self- 
sacrifice,  made  in  accordance  with  the  best  light 
we  have,  is  ever  unfruitful,  or  ever  fails.  The 
great  preacher  never  regretted,  he  always  re- 
joiced in,  what  he  had  done.  "  Obedience  costs 
something,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend  ;  «  but  I  have 
learnt  by  experience  that  it  is,  sooner  or  later, 
recompensed,  and  that  God  alone  knows  what 
is  good  for  us."  ^  "  Since  I  have  few  virtues," 
he  says  in  another  place,  "  I  wish  at  least  on 
the  day  of  judgment  to  be  able  to  carry  there 
the  life  of  a  priest  without  ambition.  "2  You 
have  heard  what  he  thought  eight  days  after 
he  had  made  the  great  sacrifice  of  his  life; 
would  you  hear  whether  he  at  all  changed  his 
opinion  at  the  close  of  it  >  "  What  has  been 
my  strength,"  he  wrote,  -  during  my  whole  life, 
has  been  precisely  not  to  choose  what  I  should 
have  wished,  but  to  be  always  at  the  orders  of 
God,  whose  will   manifests  itself  by  the  often 

*  Correspond.  Incdite,  p.  45. 

2  Cortesp.  de  M.  Lacordair,  et  de  Madame  de  Swctchine,  par  le 
Comte  de  Falloux,  p.  24.^ 


io6 


SAINTLY  WORKPIRS.      [sfrm.  hi. 


unforeseen  course  of  events.  It  is  now  thirty 
years  since  I  left  the  world.  During  those 
thirty  years  God  has  twelve  times  changed 
my  residence,  and  fifteen  times  my  position, 
and  I  have  scarcely  ever  done  what  I  should 
myself  have  chosen.  What  reassures  me  is 
that  I  am  not  doing  what  I  wish."  "  I  am 
committing  suicide,"  he  once  said,  in  accept- 
ing a  high  post,  *'  but  it  is  God  who  wills  it : 
that  is  my  strength,  my  support,  my  life. "  ^ 

Now,  my  brethren,  time  does  not  permit  that 
I  should  say  very  many  things  which  would 
result  naturally  from  the  slight  and  rapid 
glance  which  we  have  taken  at  an  effort  after 
holiness,  which,  as  you  see  even  to  this  very 
day,  produced  very  beautiful  and  very  memo- 
rable results;  which  has  enriched  the  world  by 
the  heritage  of  noble  services,  and  sustained  the 
Church  with  the  viaticum  of  glorious  examples. 
But  this  surely  we  may  say — that  though 
monasticisni  has  perished,  probably  for  ever, 
we,  though  we  never  enter  the  cloistered  cell, 

*  Foisset,  Vie  dc  Lacordain,  p.  261. 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS. 


107 


may  still,  in  the  trivial  round  and  the  common 
task,  borrow  from  it  its  truest  and  most 
exalted  elements ; — its  victory  over  carnal  pas- 
sions ;  its  superiority  to  the  allurements  of  the 
world.  And  in  aiming  at  these,  by  ways  which 
we  deem  better  and  more  sure,  we  may  try  to 
attain  at  least  to  some  faint  reflex  of  those 
Christ-like  virtues  which  we  rightly  revere  in 
these  our  elder  brothers  in  the  great  family 
of  Christ,  who  have 


"Gone  before 
And  left  their  trail  of  light  upon  the  shore." 

Of  superiority  to  worldly  interests  I  may  speak 
another  time;  but  suffer  me  to  say  one  last 
word  now  on  the  conquest  over  sensual  tempta- 
tions. I  cannot  dwell  on  this  ;  but  I  do  believe 
that  if  the  monks  of  old  exaggerated  their 
danger,  and— it  is  very  sad  to  think— some- 
times enormously  increased  that  danger  by  the 
very   means  which  they  designed   to  avert  it,^ 

1  Sec  some  very  remarkable  testimonies  of  monks  and  hermits 
Giescler's  Ecdesiastkal  History^  ii.  4. 


io8 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,      [serm.  hi. 


yet  we  in  this  age  greatly  underrate  it,  and  are 
not  sufficiently  on  our  guard  against  it.  It  is  a 
mistake  to  speak  of  youthful  passions,  as  though 
carnal  passions  were  only  youthful.  The  saints, 
who  meditated  deeply  and  for  long  years  on 
the  deceitfulness  of  the  heart  of  man,  knew 
better  than  tliis.  They  knew,  as  St.  Paul 
knew,  that  the  conquest  over  the  carnal  heart 
is  not  to  be  won  without  a  struggle,  and  not  to 
be  won  in  a  moment  of  time.  Long,  agonising, 
terrible  were  their  conflicts.  With  them  life  was, 
in  no  mere  figure  of  speech,  a  mortification  of 
sensuality,  a  crucifixion  with  Christ.  St.  Jerome, 
after  years  of  toil  and  fasting  in  his  rocky  ceU 
at  Bethlehem,  assailed  by  evil  imaginations, 
beats  his  worn  breast  with  the  stone  which  lay 
ever  at  his  side.^  The  bed  of  briers  is  still 
shown  in  which  St.  Benedict,  while  yet  a  boy, 
rolled  his  naked  body,  till  it  was  well-nigh  one 

*  "  Ille  igiturego,  qui  ob  Gehennae  metum  tali  me  carcere  ipse 
damnaveram,  scnrpionum  tantum  socius  et  ferarum,  saepe  choris 
intereram  puellarum.  Pallebant  ora  jejuniis,  et  mens  desideriis 
aestudbat  in  pallido  corpore. "— Jer.  Ep.  ad  Eustoch.  i8,  and  to 
a  similar  effect  Nilus^  ii.  140. 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS. 


109 


wound,  that  he  might  be  cured  utterly  from 
unholy  thoughts,  and  where  St.  Francis  planted 
roses  in  honour  of  his  victory.^  St.  Bernard, 
horrified  at  a  bad  impulse,  rushed  out,  and 
stood  till  life  and  sense  had  both  well-nigh  left 
him,  neck  deep  in  an  icy  pool.  And  sometimes 
we  read  how  they  achieved,  after  long  effort, 
the  final  victory :  how  they  got  possession  or,2 
were  masters  of,  their  own  bodies  ;  "  made  their 
passions  come  to  heel  by  a  stern  will  the  ser- 
vant of  a  tender  conscience ;"  ^  assumed  and 
maintained  a  "  serene  and  tranquil  empire  over 
themselves."  We  read  how  St.  Nilus/  finding 
it  impossible  to  get  rid  of  a  sensuous  tempta- 
tion, though  he  wrestled  with  himself  till  the 
sweat  trickled  from  his  forehead,  threw  him- 
self with  contrition  to  the  ground  and  prayed 
—"Lord,  Thou  knowest  my  weakness;  pity 
me,   and   ease  me  of  my  conflict;"   and   how 

1  Milman,  Latin  Christianity,  L  418 ;  Montalembert,  Monks 
of  the  \V(st,  ii.  10. 

«  icroxrQax.     i  Thess.  iv.  4 ;  Luke  xxi.  19. 

»  Prof.  Huxley.  4  ^,^„^^^^  ^.   ^^^ 


\ 


no 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,      [serm.  iif. 


in   a  vision   the   figure   of  the   Crucified  stood 
at    his    right    hand,    made    over   him     thrice 
the  sign  of  the  cross,  and,  vanishing,  left  him 
the  victor  over  all  his  worst  temptations.     We 
read  how  St.  Hugo  of  Avalon,  at   the  age  of 
forty,  not  yet  utterly  dead  to  the  flesh,  in  spite 
of  the  harsh  lifelong  austerities  of  his  rule,  was 
assailed  by  emotions  so  violent  that  he  after- 
wards said  he  would  rather  face  the  pains  of 
Gehenna  than  encounter  them  again ;   and  one 
night,  when  the  agony  reached  its  crisis,  wrestled 
like  Jacob  in  wild  prayer,  till  he  saw  the  dead 
prior,  who  had  admitted  him  as  a  boy  into  the 
Chartreuse,  lean   over  him,  and  seem  to  draw 
from    his   bosom   a   fiery   mass,   and    left   him 
thenceforth    strong    and    cured    for    life.^     My 
brethren,   if  these   great    saints   of  God   found 
it   so  very  hard   to   be  delivered    from    unholy 
thoughts  and  acts  in  lives  spent  in  the  sternest 
and    most    unsparing    self-discipline,   is   it   not 
mere    hypocrisy    for    men    in    luxurious,    self- 
indulgent,    full-fed    lives,    to    assume    that    it 

*  Froude,  Short  Studies,  ii.  57. 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS. 


Ill 


is  very  easy  ?     Is   it  not   true,  as  Dante  sang, 
that— 

"Not  on  flowery  beds,  nor  under  shade 
Of  canopy  reposing,  heaven  is  won  ? " 

Is  there  not  a  deep  meaning  in  the  verse  of  the 
old  familiar  hymn — 

**  Shall  we  be  carried  to  the  skies 
On  flowery  beds  of  ease, 
When  others  fought  to  win  the  prize. 
And  sailed  through  bloody  seas?" 

Is  not  the  Christian  life  a  race — a  wrestling 

a  warfare  in  which  there  is  no  discharge  >  Even 
if,  by  God's  blessing,  we  have  passed  to  any 
degree  unscathed  through  the  storms  of  youth, 
it  is  an  illusion  to  think  that  all  is  well.  Middle- 
age  religion,  if  it  be  not  deep  and  true  religion, 
is  too  often  ''  like  the  rotting  tree-trunks,  which 
do  but  mimic  the  semblance  of  some  ghostly  or 
human  life  ; "  1  and  we  have  all  deep  need  of  that 
promise  of  David,  "  Non  timebis  a  daemonic 
meridiano,"  thou  shalt  not  fear  from  the  demon 

^  Martineau. 


i 


112 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,      [serm.  hi. 


SERM.  III.] 


THE  MONKS. 


113 


of  the  noonday.     "  That  demon  of  the  noonday- 
is  the  demon  of  maturity,  a  second  youth  which 
comes   to  us    about  the   middle   of   life,    more 
dangerous   even   than   the    first,   and    in   which 
even  tried  virtues  often  fail."  ^     Oh,  my  brethren, 
this  much  at  least  all  of  us,  alike  the  elder  and 
the  young,  may  learn  from  these  saintly  workers, 
not   to   sleep   on   the   post   of  danger;    not   to 
dream  that  the  enemy  is  dead  ;  to  be   earnest, 
to  be  simple,  to  be  self-denying,  to  be  resolute, 
to  be  abstinent,  to  be  sincere.     Not  indeed  in 
celibacy,  but  if  God  permits  us,  in  honourable 
marriage,  or  in  the  hope  of  a  pure  and  faithful 
betrothal ;— not  in  self-torture,  but  yet  in  earnest 
watchfulness;    not  in   extreme   fasting,   but   in 
habitual  and  careful  moderation  ;  not  in  morbid 
self-introspection,  but  in  thorough  and  vigorous 
occupation;    not   in    enfeebling    the    bod'y    by 
maceration,    but   by   filling   its   hours   of    work 
with   strenuous   and   cheerful   activity,    and    its 
hours  of  leisure  with  bright  thoughtfulness  and 
many  a  silent  prayer  ;-by  these  blessed  means 

*  Lacordaire,  Correfond.  InMiUy  p.  459. 


we  too,  even  in  the   midst   of  the   world,  may 
attain  to  the  spirit  which  is  dead  to  the  world  : 
we  may  be  keeping  under  our  body  and  bring- 
ing  it   into   subjection;   may,  in   no   mere  for- 
mula, but  in  truthful    figure  be  "crucified  with 
Christ."     Deeply,  I  fear,  does  this  age  need  to 
take   to   heart   the   stern,   inexorable    necessity 
for  such  self-conquest.     Surely  this  is  the  essence 
of  all  Lenten  lessons.     It  was  the  central  con- 
ception   of  monasticism,    it    may  well    be   the 
central   lesson   of    modern    civilisation.       "The 
night  is  far  spent,  the  day  is  at  hand  :  let  us 
therefore  cast  off  the  works  of  darkness,  and  let 
us  put   on  the  armour  of  light.     Let  us  walk 
honestly,  as  in  the  day ;  not  in  rioting  and  drun- 
kenness,   not   in   chambering    and    w^antonness, 
not  in  strife  and  envying.      But  put  ye  on  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  make  not  provision  for 
the  flesh,  to  subdue  the  lusts  thereof.  "^ 

^  Rom.  xiii.  12-14. 


SERMON  IV. 
THE   EARLY   FRANCISCANS. 


I  2 


ST.  DOMINIC. 

*'  Domenico  fu  detto,  ed  io  ne  parlo 
SI  come  deir  agricola  che  Cristo 
Elesse  all'  orto  suo  per  aiutarlo. 
Ben  parve  messo  e  famigliar  di  Cristo 
Che  '1  primo  amor  che  'n  lui  fu  manifesto 
Fu  al  primo  consiglio  che  die  Cristo." 

Paradiso^  xii.  70-75. 

•*  He  was  called  Dominic.     I  speak  of  him 
As  of  a  tiller  of  the  earth  whom  Christ 
To  His  own  vineyard  called  to  be  His  aid. 
Well  was  he  seen  Christ's  friend  and  messenger. 
For  the  first  act  of  love  in  him  observed 
Obeyed  the  chiefest  precept  left  by  Christ." 

POLLOK. 

ST.  FRANCIS. 

**  Francesco  e  poverta  per  questi  amanti 
Prendo  oramai  nel  mio  parlar  difTuso." 

FaradisOy  xi.  74. 


"  Francis  and  Poverty,  these  loving  ones 
Thou  mayst  collect  to  be  from  this  long  strain." 

POLIOK. 


ii8 


119 


THE  ORDERS  OF  ST.  FRANCIS  AND  ST.  DOMINIC. 

*' Je  vois  sa  vie  toute  resplendissante  de  cette  divine  clarte  qui 
est  au  dedans  de  nous,  et  oil  nous  decouvrons,  comme  dans  un 
globe  de  lumiere,  I'agrcment  immortel  de  Thonneur  et  de  la 
veriu."— LossuET. 


**  O  vitae  tuta  facultas 
Pauperis,  angustique  lares,  O  munera  nondum 
Intellecta  Deum." 

Luc.  Pilars.  V.  231. 

"Dicite,   Tontifices,  in  sancto  quid   facit  aurum?"~PERS. 
Sat.  V.  69. 

**  L*  Esercito  di  Cristo,  che  si  caro 

Costo  a  riarmar,  dietro  alia  'nsegna 
Si  movea  tardo,  suspeccioso  e  rare  ; 

Quando  lo  'mperador  che  sempre  regna 
Provvide  alia  milizia  ch'  era  in  forse 
Per  sola  grazia,  non  per  esser  degna  ; 

E,  com'  e  detto,  a  sua  sposa  soccorse 

Con  duo  campioni,  al  cui  fare,  al  cui  dire 
Lo  popol  disiato  si  accorse." 

ParadisOy  xii.  37. 


Who  rcigneth  ever,  for  the  drooping  host 

Did  make  provision,  thorough  grace  alone. 

And  not  through  its  deserving.     For  thou  heard'st 

Two  champions  to  the  succour  of  his  spouse 

He  sent,  who  by  their  deeds  and  words  might  join 

Again  thb  scattered  people." 

Cary. 

*'  Occurrit  importuna  petitio  qua  omnes  transeuntes  per  terras 
adeo  abhorrent  fratrum  occursum,  ut  eis  timeant  quasi  praedonibus 
obviarc."— BoNAVENTURA  {Gicseler^  iii.  24). 

"Omnia  pro  Christo  relinquere  et  ipsum  sequi  invitando  in 
bonis  operibus  opus  perfectionis  est,  Luc.  xviii.  22.  Glossa: 
bene  operando  non  dicit  mcndicando  :  nam  hoc  prohibetur  ab 
Apostolis." — GUL.  DE  Sto.  Amore,  De  Periculis  Novissimorum 
7\'mporum. 

"  Though  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed  the  poor,  and  have 
not  charity,  it  profiteth  me  nothing."—!  CoR.  xiii.  3. 


"  Slow,  and  full  of  doubt, 
And  with  thin  ranks,  after  its  banner  moved 
The  army  of  Christ  (which  it  so  dearly  cost 
To  reappoint),  when  its  imperial  Head, 


y 


€t 


SERMON  IV. 

T//£  EARL  Y  FRANCISCANS.^ 

PROV.  X.  22. 

The  blessing  of  the  Lord,  it  maketh  rteh,  and  He  addeth  no 

sorrow  with  it." 


I.  It  happened   one  day  that  St.   Thomas   of 
Aquinum,  the   "Angel   of    the   Schools,"  who 
was   a   Franciscan    monk,   was   sitting    in    the 
Vatican  with  Pope  Innocent  IV.,  when   masses 
of  gold  and  silver  were  being  carried   into  the 
Papal  treasury.     «  You  see,"  said  the  Pope,  with 
a   touch    of  self-satisfaction,   "the   age   of    the 
Church  is  past  when  she  could  say,  '  Silver  and 
gold  have  I  none/"     "Yes,  Holy  Father,"  re- 
plied the  Angelic  Doctor,  "  and  the  day  is  also 
past   when   she   could    say   to   the   paralytic— 
'  Take  up  thy  bed  and  walk  ! '  " 

^  Preached  in  St.  Andrew's,  Holborn,  April  4,  1878. 


122 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,      [serm.iv. 


SERM.  IV.]     EARL  V  FRANCISCANS. 


123 


2.   The   anecdote  bears  very  directly  on  the 
work  of  those  great  saints,  who  once  more— in 
the   beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century— gave 
fresh  impetus  to  the  half-spent  forces  of  previous 
moral  revolutions.     The  work  of   the  Hermits 
was   over,  because   the   age   no   longer  needed 
their   intense   protest   for  the  awfulness  of  the 
immortal   soul.     The  work  of  the  Monks  had 
shown   the  possibility  and  the  usefulness  of  a 
common  religious  life  at  an  epoch  of  wild  con- 
fusion;   but,  though  their  work  was  not  over, 
they  had  sunk  into  too  close  conformity  with 
the  corrupting  influences  of  luxurious  prosperity. 
Once  more— not  in  such  days  of  social  dissolu- 
tion as  Antony's,  nor  in  such  days  of  political 
disruption  as  Benedict's,  but  in  a  Church  at  the 
very  zenith  of  her  splendid  predominance   and 
ambitious  ease— there  was  need  to  fan,  out  of 
the  whitened  embers  of  religion,  the  smoulderinn- 
flame  of  zeal  and  love.    That  work  was  achieved 
mainly  by  two  men— St.  Dominic  of  Spain  and 
St.    Francis  of  Assissi.      St.    Dominic  founded 
the  Ordo  Praedicatorum,  or  Preaching  Friars; 


( 


St.  Francis  the  Fratres  Minores,  or  Mendicant 
Friars.  They  both  bore  witness  to  the  need  of 
energy  and  self-denial ;  but  I  shall  speak  almost 
solely  of  the  latter.  I  do  so  partly  because  he  was 
the  originator  of  that  ideal  of  absolute  poverty 
which,  for  a  time,  produced  rich  fruit ;  and 
partly  because  his  character  is  infinitely  more 
attractive  than  that  of  his  stern  contemporary 
That  St.  Dominic  was  a  sincere  and  holy  man, 
we  do  not  dream  of  questioning.  He  whom 
Dante  calls 

"  The  loving  cavalier 
Of  Christian  faith,  the  athlete  sanctified, 
Foi!d  to  his  own,  and  dreadful  to  his  foes;"* 

the  man  who  lived  so  much  in  prayer ;  the  man 
who  could  fearlessly  rebuke  great  Papal  legates 
for  their  pride  and  ostentation  ;  the  man  who, 
even  in  his  youth,  having  given  away  all  that  he 
had  in  charity,  was  so  distressed  by  the  tears  of 

"L'amoroso  drudo 
Dalla  Fede  cristiana,   il  santo  atleta, 
Benigno  a'  suoi  cd  a  'nimici  crudo." 

Paradiio^  xii.  55. 


1^ 


124 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.      [serm.  iv. 


a  poor  woman,  who  wished  to  redeem  her  son 
from  slavery,  that  he  offered  himself  to  be  sold 
into  slavery  in  her  son's  place, — was  one  whose 
holiness  and  self-devotion  it  would  be  inexcu- 
sable for  the  comfortable  and  conventional 
Christians  of  this  age  to  deny.  But,  however 
wide  may  be  the  catholicity  of  our  admiration, 
we  cannot  feel  specially  drawn  to  one  who  in- 
stituted the  vain  and  mechanical  iterations  of 
the  rosary;^  to  one  who,  however  sincere  in 
his  zeal — who,  however  much  he  may  have  been 
convinced  that  "  agonies  of  pain  and  blood  shed 
in  rivers  was  better  than  the  soul  spotted  and 
bewildered  with  Twhat  he  deemed  to  be)  mor- 
tal sin  " — yet  comes  to  us  with  the  traditions  of 
a  persecutor;  looms  black  and  ghastly  to  us 
through  a  century  darkened  with  the  Tophet- 
smoke  of  the  Inquisition,  and  from  the  midst 
of  men  whose  robes  were  drenched  and  dyed 
with  Albigensian  blood.  He  presented,  doubt- 
less, a  very  different  aspect  to  a  different  age. 

^  See  Alban  Butler,  Lives  of  the  Saints,  August  4.     It  is  a 
recital  of  15  Pater -Xosiers,  and  150  Ave-Marys. 


SERM.  IV.]     EARL  V  FRANCISCANS, 


125 


Dante  sees  him  like  one  of  the  shining  cherubs 
the  spiritus  luccntes  of  Paradise,  and  says  of 
him  and  of  St.  Francis  : — 

"One  all  seraphic  was  in  ardent  love; 
The  otlier  was  for  wisdom  on  the  earth 
A  radiation  of  cherubic  lisrht."^ 

But  though  the  workman  be  saved,  the  work  is 
burned  ;  though  he  and  his  followers  built,  or 
meant  to  build,  on  the  one  foundation,  yet  that 
which  they  built  —  the  cruelty  of  remorseless 
persecution,  the  fanaticism  of  bigoted  intoler- 
ance, the  furies  of  anathema  and  interdict — 
was  a  superstructure  of  worthless  hay  and 
stubble,  fit  only  to  be  consumed  in  God's  re- 
vealing fire,  and  winnowed  to  the  four  winds 
with  His  purging  fan. 2     And  therefore  from  the 

*  "I/un  fu  tutto  serafico  in  ardore  ; 

L'altro  per  sapicnza  in  terra  fue 
Di  cherubica  luce  uno  splendore." 

Paradiso  xi.  57. 
'  Dante  {Paradiso,  x.  94,  and  xi.  ad fiuem)  speals  in  words  of 
grave  warning  about  the  degeneracies  of  both  Dominicans  and 
Franciscans  ;  and  how  rapid  this  degeneracy  was  may  be  seen  in 
the  passage  quoted  from  Bonaventura  and  others  in  the  Prefatory 
Extracts,  p.  119. 


r- 


126 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,      [serm.  iv. 


ferocity  and  gloom  of  the  Dominicans  we  will 
turn  to  the  angelic  gentleness  of  Francis  of 
Assissi — fit  successor  of  Antony,  the  greatest 
of  the  hermits,  and  Benedict,  the  wisest  of 
monastic  founders.  "Antony,"  it  has  been 
said,  "  had  shown  to  an  effete  and  dying  age 
an  image  of  the  strength  of  man  in  fellowship 
with  God.  Benedict  had  reared  on  the  ruins 
of  the  desolated  empire  the  fabric  of  an  abid- 
ing society.  It  remained  for  Francis,  in  the 
midst  of  a  Church  endowed  with  all  that  art, 
and  learning,  and  wealth,  and  power  could  give, 
to  re-assert  the  love  of  God  to  the  poorest,  the 
meanest,  the  most  repulsive  of  His  children. 
"  A  man,"  he  said,  "  is  as  great  as  he  is  in  the 
sight  of  God,  and  no  greater."  "  If  I  lived  to 
the  end  of  the  world,"  he  said,  again,  "  I  should 
need  no  other  book  than  the  record  of  the  Pas- 
sion of  Christ."  Humbling  himself  by  every 
mortification  beneath  the  lowliest,  he  yet  did 
not  mistake  his  mission.  Once,  when  he  was 
suddenly  seized  by  robbers,  and  they  roughly 
questioned  him  as  to  who  he  was,  he  replied, 


SERM.  IV.]     EARL  Y  FRANCISCANS, 


127 


with  a  prophetic  voice,  "  I  am  a  herald  of   the 
Great  King."  1 

3.  Of  all  the  men  who  have  ever  lived  there 
is  probably  not  one  who  has  ever  made  it  so  ab- 
solutely his  aim,  as  did  St.  Francis,  to  reproduce, 
in  letter  as  well  as  in  spirit,  the  very  life  of  Christ. 
Among  the  hills  and  villages  of  Umbria  he 
strove  to  live  with  his  few  first  followers  the 
very  same  life  that  our  Lord  had  lived  with 
His  apostles  on  the  shores  of  Galilee  and  in  the 
villages  of  Palestine.  You  will  say  that  there 
was  in  this  a  fundamental  mistake;  that  the 
true  imitation  of  Christ  is  the  obedience  to  His 
commandments  ;  that  the  unreasoning  reproduc- 
tion of  external  circumstances  was,  in  the  first 
place,  impossible,  and  in  the  second  erroneous — 
a  literal  misinterpretation,  a  spiritual  anachro- 
nism. You  may  say,  when  you  have  heard  how 
St.  Francis  lived,  that  he  was  fundamentally 
mistaken  in  supposing  that  the  free  and  noble 
poverty  of  Christ  was  either  mendicancy  or 
pauperism;    that    he    was    foolishly    literal    in 

1  Westcott. 


128 


SAINTL  Y  WORKERS.      [serm.  iv. 


A 


making  of  universal  application  the  special 
directions  given  for  a  short  time  to  the  Seventy 
or  the  Twelve  ;  that  there  was  want  of  common 
sense  in  trying  to  imitate  amid  the  keen  moun- 
tain breezes  of  the  Apennines  the  tropic  dress 
of  the  Plain  of  Gennesareth  ; — that  the  entire 
system  of  the  Friars  Minor,  as  St.  Francis  in- 
stituted it,  was  liable  to  be  entangled  with  the 
ignorant  misconception  that  poverty  and  suffer- 
ing are,  in  themselves,  dear  to  God  as  etidsy  and 
not  as  means.  Well,  on  the  one  hand,  to  speak 
thus  is  merely  to  judge  the  thirteenth  century 
by  the  totally  different  conceptions  of  the  nine- 
teenth, and  on  the  other  hand — let  the  tree  be 
known  by  its  fruits.  Call  St.  Francis,  if  you 
will,  a  sublime  madman,  a  fanatical  enthusiast. 
Insult  and  misrepresentation  have  ever  been  the 
portion  in  their  lifetime  of  God's  most  earnest 
children. 


(( 


Enough  !  high  words  abate  no  jot  or  tittle 
Of  what,  while  life  still  lasts,  shall  still  be  true  ; 

Heaven's  i/reat  ones  must  be  slandered  by  earth's  little, 
And  God  makes  no  ado." 


s 


SERM.  IV.]     EARLY  FRANCISCANS, 


129 


But  still  it  remains  true  that  no  human  being 
who   has  had    the    faith  to  take  Christ  at    His 
very  word, — be  it  even  in  unlettered  ignorance, 
— has  ever  been   allowed  to  find   His  promise 
fail.     On  one  occasion  Fra  Masseo,  a  handsome, 
burly,  eloquent,  and  somewhat  self-satisfied  friar, 
and  one  of  the  earliest  converts  to   the  order, 
meeting  St.  Francis  as  he  came — a  gaunt,  worn, 
pitiable  figure — out   of  the  wood  where  he  was 
constantly  in  prayer,  burst  out  with  the  excla- 
mation :  "  Why  to  thee  }  why  to  thee  ? "  "  What 
say   you  t "    asked    Francis,      surprised    at  the 
interruption.     "  I  say,"  answered  Masseo,  "  why 
should  all  the  world  run  after  thee,  and  every  one 
desire  to  see,  and  hear,  and  obey  thee }     Thou 
art  not  handsome ;    thou   art  not  noble ;    thou 
art  not  learned  ;  then  why  to  thee }    Why  does 
all  the  world  run  after  thee  t "  ^     The  saint  was 

1  This  and  many  of  the  facts  here  narrated  of  St.  Francis 
may  be  found  in  the  admirable  biography  by  Mrs.  Oliphant, 
which  is  mainly  taken  from  the  lives  of  him  by  the  Three  Com- 
panions ;  by  Bonaventura  ;  by  Thomas  of  Celano  ;  and  from  the 
Fioretti.  The  latter— a  delightful  series  of  legends— is  trans- 
lated by  Ozanam  in  his  Foc'Us  Franciscains, 

K 


11 


I30 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,       [serm.  iv. 


too  modest  to  reply  to  this  strange  apostrophe — 
but  we  may  answer  for  him.     It  was  because  he 
was  utterly  sincere  ;    it  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
again  and  again,  from  the  invincible  strength  of 
his  self-sacrifice.    "That  man,"  says  Sir  Arthur 
Helps,  "  is  very  strong  and  powerful  who  has  no 
more  hope  for  himself:    who   looks  not  to   be 
loved  any  more  ;  to  be  admired  any  more  ;  to 
have  any  more  honour  or  dignity  ;  and  who  cares 
not   for   gratitude ;    but   whose  sole    thoui;ht  is 
for   others,  and  w^ho  only  lives  on  for  them."^ 
He   that    utterly    despises  the    world   shall    rise 
above  the  world  ;    he  that  does  not  fear  to  be 
made  a  slave,  can  become  more  potent  than  a 
king  ;  if  any  man  will  be  great  among  you,  let  him 
be  your  servant.      This  man,  who  was  dressed  in 
rags,  who  fed  on  scraps,  who  was  unlearned  and 
simple,  and  had  sold  cloth  in  a  shop,  did  more 
for  the  Church  than  the  most  absolute  Pontiff, 
whose  stirrup  was  ever  held  for  him  by  princes, 
or  who  put  his  haughty  foot  upon  the  neck  of 
Emperors.     The  Church  which  they  helped   to 

*  Realmah, 


SERM.  IV.]     EARLY  FRANCISCANS, 


13^ 


ruin,  this  beggar, — this  simple  wanderer,  this 
glorious  pauper  of  Christ,  this  man  who  had 
become  a  fool  for  wisdom's  sake, — inspired  and 
glorified.  "You  prelates,  provided  you  eat  up 
your  vast  revenues  and  drink  the  wine  of  your 
vineyards,  care  nothing  for  the  poor  people," 
said  Philip  Augustus  of  France  very  bitterly  to 
the  French  bishops  ;  and  a  Church  of  which  such 
things  can  be  said  is  already  sapped  at  its 
foundations.  One  day  when  Innocent  III.  was 
walking  on  a  terrace  in  the  Lateran, — that 
Pope  Innocent  who  had  made  Otho  of  Germany 
tremble;  who  had  reduced  Philip  Augustus  to 
submission  ;  who  had  sent 


"Pandulph,  of  fair  Milan,  cardinal,"^ 

to  bring  King  John  of  England  to  his  knees — 
while  this  stateliest  of  imperial  Pontiffs,  at  the 
summit  of  his  grandeur,  was  meditating  on  the 
government  of  nations  in  his  silent  pacing  to  and 
fro — he  was  disturbed  by  the  approach  of  a 
humble  brown  figure  in  peasant's  garb.     With  a 

*  He  was,  however,  only  a  legate,  not  cardinal. 

K   2 


132 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,       [serm.  iv. 


gesture  of  contempt  the  great  Pope  motioned 
him  away ;  but  that  night  he  had  two  dreams — 
the  one  was  that  a  tall  and  beautiful  palm-tree 
grew  up  at  his  very  feet  ;  the  other  that  he  saw 
the  grand  church  of  St.  John  Lateran  falling 
into  ruins,  when  the  same  poor  brown  fio-ure 
whom  he  had  repelled,  ran  forward  and  upheld 
it  with  his  hands.  Admonished  by  these  dreams, 
or  with  a  flash  of  insight  into  the  power  of  en- 
thusiasm, he  sent  for  Francis  and  gave  a  general 
sanction  to  his  organisation  of  the  Fratres 
Minores,  the  "Lesser  Brothers,"— the  lowest  and 
humblest,  but  destined  to  be  the  most  powerful 
order,  the  most  militant  missionaries  of  the 
Church.  Now  which  was  the  most  really  in- 
fluential, the  magnificent  Pope  or  the  ascetic 
visionary }  Did  not  God  make  the  counsels  of 
princes  of  none  effect,  but  bring  the  poor  out  of 
his  misery  and  make  him  households  like  a  flock 
of  sheep.?  Almost  every  vast  design  of  the 
mighty  Innocent  was,  even  in  his  own  lifetime 
more  or  less  of  failure  ;i    but  the  order  of  St. 

*  Milman,  Latm  Christianity, 


SERM.  IV.]     EARLY  FRANCISCANS, 


133 


PVancis   of  Assissi  soon  multiplied  to  myriads, 
and  was  to  be  counted  by  thousands  even  at  his 
early   death.       The    humility    and    devotion    of 
Francis  gave  fresh  force  to  that  Church  which 
the  ambition  of  Innocent  had  weakened  by  over- 
strain.    And  yet,  happy  in  his  wise  ignorance, 
profound  in  his  unlearned  simplicity,  his  whole 
secret  was  to  follow  Christ,  and  to  hold  cheap 
what  the  world  desires.      What  is  at  this  moment 
occupying   the   vast  majority   in    this  city — the 
vast  majority,  it  may  be,  of  us  even  in  this  con- 
gregation }     Is   it   not   some    form  or   other  of 
self-interest  t    Is  it  not,  in  some  form  or  other, 
money,  or  pleasure,  or  ambition  }    Do   not   the 
streets,  the  shops,  the  offices,  buzz  with  talk  of 
money  ?     "  There  are  three  things  that  make  up 
all  business,  which  enter  into  all  the  intrigues, 
which  inflame  all  the  passions,  which  actuate  all 
the   eagerness   of  the  world.     St.    Francis   saw 
that   they   were   illusions;    he   saw   that   riches 
enslave,  that  honours  overpower,  that  pleasures 
effeminate  the  heart.      He  saw  that  these  broad 
roads  lead  many  to  perdition.      For  himself  he 


vf  > 


i.H 


SAn^TLY  WORKERS.       [serm.  iv. 


SERM.  IV.]     EARLY  FRANCISCANS. 


135 


sought  another  road.  He  found  riches  in 
poverty;  joy  in  suffering;  glory  in  self-abase- 
ment." ^  At  the  age  of  twenty-five  he  burst  every 
bond  of  family,  of  position,  of  comfort,  and, 
stripped  bare  of  every  possession,  descended 
from  the  hill  of  Assissi  to  show  the  world  the 
most  complete  example  of  the  madness  of  the 
cross.  "  But  far  from  revolting  the  world,  he 
subdues  it  !  The  more  this  sublime  fanatic 
abased  himself  in  order  to  make  himself  more 
worthy,  by  his  humility  and  the  contempt  of 
men,  to  be  the  instrument  of  love,  the  more  did 
his  greatness  shine  and  radiate  afar,  and  the 
more  did  men  fling  themselves  in  his  path,  some 
ambitious  to  despoil  themselves  of  everything 
like  him,  some  eager,  at  least,  to  gather  up  his 
words  of  inspiration  ";2 — those  words,  which,  as 
Thomas  of  Celano  witnesses,  "penetrated  like 
glowing  fire  to  the  inmost  depths  of  the  heart." 

4.  Let  me,  then,  as  briefly  as  I  can,  tell  you 
one  or  two  of  the  facts  of  his  life.     Francesco 

^  Bossuet. 

*  Montdlembert,  Elizakth  d'Hongrou,  i.  61. 


Bernardone  was  the  son  of  a  merchant  of  As- 
sissi, in  Umbria.  In  his  boyhood  and  youth 
he  was  the  gayest  of  the  gay,  the  flower  of  the 
Assissian  youth,  pure  and  kind,  but  the  bright 
leader  of  pleasure-loving  companions  ;  living 
above  his  station,  as  though  he  had  been  a 
prince's  son  ;  a  soldier,  a  singer,  with  many  a 
vain  ambition,  though  not  without  stirrings  of 
deeper  hope.  When  he  was  twenty-five  a  dan- 
gerous sickness  made  the  whole  world  look 
different  to  him,  and  changed  the  current  of 
his  thoug-hts.  Visions  seemed  to  summon  him 
to  some  great  work.  He  saw  a  palace  full  of 
pieces  of  armour  all  signed  with  the  cross,  and 
when  he  asked  to  whom  these  belonged,  was 
told:  "To  thee  and  to  thy  soldiers;"  and 
felt  himself  bidden  to  be  a  soldier ;  but  not 
as  he  at  first  supposed  in  earthly  armies.  As 
he  knelt  before  the  crucifix  he  thought  that  it 
thrice  said  to  him :  "  Go,  rebuild  My  house, 
which,  as  thou  seest,  is  falling  to  ruins ; "  and 
it  was  years  before  his  simple  and  faithful 
heart    comprehended    that    the    Church   which 


136 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.       [serm.  iv. 


he  was  bidden  to  rebuild  was,  not  as  he  at 
first  supposed,  the  material  structure,  but  the 
living  congregation.  In  the  very  midst  of  his 
youthful  gaiety  deep  hushes  of  emotion  came 
over  him.  He  feels  his  head  overshadowed 
by  the  hands  of  "  invisible  consecration." 
The  life  of  Christ  seizes  possession  of  his 
thoughts  with  overmastering  sway.  One  day, 
riding  across  a  valley,  he  sees  a  leper,  turns 
from  him  for  one  instant  with  irrepressible 
disgust,  then  in  shame  dismounts,  fills  the  poor 
sufferer's  hand  with  alms,  and  humbly  kisses 
it.  Then,  riding  on,  he  looks  back  for  an  in- 
stant, and  lo  !  there  is  no  leper  there,  and  he 
believes  that  he  has  had  a  vision  of  "  the  poor 
man  Christ  Jesus  " — an  image  of  whom  he  sees 
ever  afterwards  in  all  who  suffer  and  are  poor. 
He  visits  Rome ;  flings  his  whole  purse  of 
money  as  an  offering  on  the  floor  of  St.  Peter's, 
and,  going  out,  strips  off  his  gay  robes,  ex- 
changes them  for  the  ragged  gaberdine  of  a 
beggar,  and  sits  begging  on  the  steps.  Called, 
as  he  fancies,  to  restore  the  ruined  Church  of 


1 


t 


SERM.  IV.]     EARLY  FRANCISCANS. 


m 


St.  Damian,  he  impetuously  takes  some  of  his 
father's  goods,  sells  them,  and  brings  the 
money  to  the  priest.  His  father,  regarding  the 
young  man  as  a  lunatic,  chooses  to  treat  this 
as  a  theft,  imprisons,  and  cruelly  oppresses  him. 
Francis  appeals  to  the  bishop,  and  in  full  court 
not  only  gives  back  the  money  to  his  father,  but 
strips  himself  of  his  very  clothes,  down  to  the 
hair  shirt  which  he  wore  next  to  his  skin,  and, 
covered  by  the  pitying  bishop  with  his  own 
palliiun,  calls  the  spectators  to  bear  witness 
that  "  he  is  no  longer  the  son  of  Pietro  Bar- 
nardone,  but  a  servant  of  God."  Then  begins 
his  special  work.  He  rebuilds  three  crumbling 
churches  of  his  native  town,  begging  for  the 
stones,  and  laying  them  with  his  own  hands. 
Though  naturally  fond  of  delicacies,  he  began 
literally  to  beg  for  his  daily  food,  and  to 
live  only  on  the  unpalatable  scraps  which  were 
given  him.  One  day  in  church,  as  he  listened 
tO  the  words  of  the  Gospel  :  "  Provide  neither 
golfl,  nor  silver,  nor  brass  in  your  purses  ; 
neiiher  two  coats,  neither  shoes,  nor  yet  staves. 


138 


SAINTL  Y  WORKERS,       [s  e  r  m  .  i  v. 


And  as  ye  go,  preach,  saying  :    The  Kingdom 
of   Heaven   is   at    hand"  —  the    words   flashed 
in   upon   his  soul  with  overpowering   force,   as 
though  the  light  of  God  had  moved  over  the 
graven    gems   of  the    Urim.      "Here,"   he  ex- 
claimed, "is  what  I  have  wanted  ;   here  is  what 
I    have   sought!"    and    with    literal    simplicity 
then  and  there  he  flung  away  shoes,  and  staff", 
and  purse,  and  bound  his  tunic  round  him  with 
a  rope.     Companions  began  to  join  him.     Seek- 
ing guidance  from  God,  he  bade  the  priest  take 
the  missal,  sign  it  with  the  cross,  lay  it  on  the 
altar,   and   open    it   three   times;    intending  to 
take  for  his    future   guidance   the   Sortes   Bib- 
licae  thus    solemnly   invoked.      The   first   time 
the   book   opened   at — "Go   and    sell   all    that 
thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor."     The  second 
time  at — "  Take  nothing  for  your  journey."    The 
third  time  at—"  He  who  will  come  after  Me,  let 
him  deny  himself,  and  take  up  his  cross  and 
follow  Me."     Francis  and  his  few  friends  took 
the  commands  literally,  and  the  very  first  inci- 
dent that  followed  showed  that  their  practical 


SERM.  IV.]     EARL  Y  ERANCISCANS. 


139 


protest  was  needed,  and  was  not  in  vain.  Ber- 
nardo, a  rich  and  noble  citizen,  determined  to 
sell  all  and  join  the  little  company.  Seeing 
then^  give  so  amply  to  the  poor,  a  greedy  priest 
came  and  claimed  additional  payment  for  some 
stones  which  he  had  given  to  Francis  when  he 
was  building  St.  Damian's.  "Wondering  at 
his  avarice,  but,  like  a  true  servant  of  the  Gos- 
pel, not  wishing  to  contend  with  him,"  Francis 
put  both  hands  into  Bernardo's  lap,  and  filling 
them  with  gold,  flung  it  into  the  priest's  lap, 
saying,  with  a  little  touch  of  contempt,  "  Have 
you  yet  enough,  Sir  Priest  t "  "  I  have  enough, 
my  brother,"  said  the  priest  in  meek  compunc- 
tion, and  from  that  day  became  a  better  and 
holier  man.^ 

And  from  that  day,  too,  the  order  grew 
and  prospered.  They  lived  in  a  bare  hut  ; 
they  preached,  they  prayed  ;  they  begged  their 
daily  food  ;  they  tended  the  sick ;  they  gave 
of  what  they  had  to  all  the  poor  who  came 
to    them  ;    they   possessed    nothing,    either    for 

^  Mrs.  Oliphant,  Francis  of  Assissi,  p.  43. 


140 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,       [serm.  iv. 


SERM.  IV.]     EARL  V  ERANCISCANS, 


their  order  or  for   themselves;   and  thus  mak- 
ing   Poverty   their  bride  amid  the   mad    desire 
of  their  age  for  wealth,  they  introduced  nobler 
aims  and  holier  feelings  into   a  luxurious   and 
ambitious    Church,    into   an    oppressive,    blood- 
stained, cruel  world.     It  was  a  grand,  emphatic 
protest  which  appealed   to  the   imagination   of 
all  men.     Nothing  can  show  more  forcibly  the 
power   of  this   appeal    than    the  fact    that    St. 
Francis,  as  the  chosen  bridegroom  of  Poverty, 
was  celebrated  alike  in  the  paintings  of  Giotto 
and    in   the   verse   of  Dante.     When  men  saw 
Francis  at   the  table  of  nobles  and    cardinals, 
bright   and   courteous,    but   while   he   went    on 
talking,  unostentatiously  deluging  his  plate  with 
cold   water,   or  quietly  sprinkling   a  few  ashes 
over    the    rich    food,   with    the    half    apology, 
"  Brother  ash  is  pure,"  they  saw  at  least  that 
these  men  had  other  thoughts  and  other  hopes 
than  the  fat  monks,  and    immoral    priests,  and 
splendour-loving  bishops,  of  whom  the  Church 
in  that  day  was  full. 

Thus  humbly  and  simply  did  St.  Francis  live 


141 


with  his  brethren,  caring  for  others,  not  for  him- 
self. Before  his  death  he  founded  the  order  of 
the  Poor  Ladies  of  Clare,  for  v\  omen  ;  and  (which 
was  a  memorable  advance  on  all  previous  re- 
forms) the  order  of  Tertiaries;— a  simple  rule  of 
faith  and  prayer  for  married  people,  and  people 
in  the  world,  who  could  not  join  his  order  to  the 
full.  'For  St.  Francis  recognised,  by  true  and 
humble  instinct,  that  God's  world  of  fathers,  and 
mothers,  and  children,  and  workday  people  was 
not  all  lost  and  ruined,  but  that  mercy  was  open 
and  salvation  possible  even  to  those  who  walked 
on  the  fair  and  holy  way  of  nature  ;  that  God 
was  also  the  master  of  those  who  lived  in 
comfort,  and  was  able  to  call  them  by  His 
grace,  as  they  trod  the  common  path  of  life 
*•  though  a  harder  path,  which  was  not  that  of 
nature,— a  thorny  road,  above  the  common 
flowery  levels  of  humanity,  was  that  which  he 
had  chosen  for  himself"  ^  He  journeyed  to  the 
Crusaders  at  Damietta,  and  earnestly  courting 
martyrdom,  went  at  the  most  imminent  risk  to 

^  Mrs.  Oliphant,  p.  204. 


142 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,       [serm.  iv. 


convert  the  Sultan,  accompanied  by  but  a  single 
brother,— offering,  if  the  Sultan  would  embrace 
the  faith,  to  walk  through  fire.     And  then  his 
long,  but  sweet  and  humble   austerities  began 
to   do   their   natural  work.     No  one   can   with 
impunity  violate  the  clear  indications  of  nature. 
Though   scarcely   past  middle  age,  he  fell  into 
grievous  sickness.     It  was  in  one  of  the  fainting 
ecstasies  of  his  later  years  that  his  brethren  be- 
lieved him  to  have  received,  on  Monte  Alverno, 
the    stigmata — the    five    wound-marks    of    the 
crucifixion   of  his  Lord.^     His  eyes,  worn  and 
blinded  with  perpetual  tears,  began  to  fail.     It 
was  deemed  necessary  that  he  should  undergo 
an  operation  with  a  burning  iron.     "  O  brother 
Fire,"   he  said,  "the  Most   High  hath  created 
thee  of  most   exceeding   comeliness,  beautiful, 
useful ;  be  thou  to  me,  in  this  my  hour,  mer- 
ciful—be  courteous  "  ;    and  when  the  operation 


*'Nel  crudo  sasso  intra  Tevere  ed  Arno 
Pa  Cristo  pree  1'  ultimo  sigiUo 
Che  le  sue  membra  du  anne  portamo." 

Dante,  Paradiso^  xi. 


w\' 


6ERM.  IV.]     EARL  y  FRANCISCANS, 


143 


was  over,  he  told  his  friends  that  God  had 
been  with  him,  and  he  had  felt  no  pain. 
Then  came  his  last  hour.  Prostrate  on  ashes, 
on  the  bare  earth,  naked,  till  one  in  pity  covered 
him  with  a  garment,  in  great  suffering,  yet  in 
exceeding  peace,  he  died,  saying  to  his  brethren 
almost  with  his  last  words,  "  I  have  done  my 
part ;  may  Christ  teach  you  to  do  yours." 

5.  My  brethren,  that  life  of  the  cross  was 
very  richly  fruitful  ;  fruitful  in  proportion  to  its 
transcendent  self-denial.  St.  Francis  of  Assissi 
was  "a  living  epistle  known  and  read  by  all  men." 
His  order,  in  that  very  century,  produced  among 
its  brethren  lives  so  powerful  and  so  famous  as 
those  of  St.  Bonaventura  and  St.  Thomas  of 
Aquinum  ;  among  its  Tertiaries  lives  so  noble 
and  so  saintly  as  those  of  St.  Louis  of  France 
and  St.  Elizabeth  of  Hungary.  St.  Francis 
furnished  one  more  instance  of  the  truth  that 
"  the  grandest  revolutions  in  the  history  of  the 
universe  have  been  accomplished  by  its  beggars, 
and,  as  the  world  thought,  its  fools  . . .  Let  a  man, 
in  any  age,  go  forth  with  the  fire   of  God  in 


144 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,       [serm.  iv. 


SERM.  IV.]    EARL  V  FRANC/SCANS. 


145 


him,  and  the  force  he  wields,  the  mastery  he 
wins,  the  new  hfe  he  quickens,  pours  silent  con- 
tempt on  gold.  The  richest  in  such  seasons  are 
those  who  give  most,  not  those  who  have  most. 
It  fills  the  Beatitudes  with  a  wonderful  meaning, 
and  shows  the  sorrows  and  straits  of  poverty 
overflowed  by  the  riches  and  joys  of  God."  ^ 

6.  For  with  all  his  sorrows  and  privations, 
Francis,  too,  like  Antony,  like  Benedict,  was 
happy.  It  was  not  that  in  his  supreme  self- 
sacrifice  he  had  forgotten  all  human  feelings,  and 
never  felt  disturbed  by  the  natural  yearning  for 
the  sweet  home  joys  which  are  not  only  natural, 
but  beautiful  and  innocent.  There  is  a  "  touching? 
story  of  how,  one  night,  in  a  tumult  and  fever  of 
feeling,  he  sprang  out  of  bed,  and  was  seen  by  a 
brother  who  was  praying  in  his  cell  to  heap 
together  seven  masses  of  snow  in  the  cold  moon- 
light, and  said,  '  Here  is  thy  wife  ;  these  four  are 
thy  sons  and  daughters  ;  the  other  two  are  thy 
servant  and  thy  handmaid  ;  and  for  all  these  thou 
art  bound   to  provide.      Make  haste  then,   and 

^  J.  Baldwin  Brown,  Misread  Passages  of  Scripture,  p.  24. 


provide  clothing  for  them,  lest  they  perish  with 
cold.     But  if  the  care  of  so  many  trouble  thee, 
be  thou  careful  to  serve  our  Lord  alone.'     He 
dissipates   the  dream,"  says   the  author  of  his 
last  biography,  "  by  the  chill  touch  of  the  snow, 
by  still  nature  hushing  the  fiery  thoughts  .  .   . 
and  then  the  curtain  of  prayer  and  silence  falls 
over   him,   and  the   convent   walls  close   black 
around.  "1     Yet  he  was  very  happy.     We  see  it 
in  the  pleasant  anecdotes  of  his  tender  love  for 
animals,  of  his  innocent  delight  in  the  beauties 
of  nature.     *'  Little  brother  leveret,  come  to  me  ; 
why  hast  thou  let  thyself  be  taken  1 "  he  said,  as 
the  little  trembling  creature  took   refuge  in  the 
folds  of  his  gown,  "as   if  it  had  some  hidden 
sense    of    the    pitifulness    of    his    heart."     He 
gently  trains   a   little   lamb   to  love   him,  and 
gives  it  to  the  poor  Sisters  of  Clare.     He  sets 
free  a  fish  which  had  been  taken,  quietly  put- 
ting it  back  into  the  water,  and  calling  it  brother. 
♦*  My  sisters,"  he  says  to  the  twittering  flitting 


'  Mrs.  Oliphant,  p.  88. 
the  Fioretti. 


Most  of  these  stories  are  taken  from 


146  SAINTLY  WORKERS.       [seraj.  iv. 


SLRM.  IV.]     EARLY  FRANCISCANS. 


147 


swallows,    who    are    disturbing    his    sermon    at 
Alvia,  "  since  you  have  had  your  say,  it  is  now 
time  that  I  should  speak  ;    listen  now  in  your 
turn  to  the  Word  of  God."    "  We  are  not  worthy 
of  such  a  treasure,"  he  said,  again  and  again,  as 
he  sat  by  a  clear  fountain  with  the  scraps  of 
food  spread  out  on  a  natural  table  of  rock  ;  and 
when   his   matter-of-fact   companion   grumbled, 
"  How  can  any  one  talk  of  a  great  treasure  when 
poverty  is  so  hard  upon  us  .? "     "  TJiis  table,"  he 
replied,  -is    to    me  rich   and    precious,   where 
everything  is  provided  for  us  by  the  hand  of 
God."  Yes,  he  was  very  happy  ;  and  the  legends 
of  the  harp   which   played   for  him    unbidden 
music,  and  the  water  which  became  for  him  like 
heavenly  wine,  are  but  symbols  of  this  inward 
joy.i     It  glows  in  every  line  of  those  poems  of 
his  which  were  the  very  dawn  of  Italian  poetry.  2 

^  The  same  stories  are  found  in  the  lives  of  St.  Dunstan  and 
St.  Ehzabeth  of  Hungary.  On  this  happiness  in  the  cloister,  see 
^^oniz}L^m\itx\,  Monks  of  tht  West,  \.t^. 

»  Iq-teMrs.Ohphant'svers.onofthis.ong.  -  InfocoVa.nor 
-  nnse.  It  is  fi.st  attributed  to  St.  Francis  by  St.  Bernardino 
of  Siena,  Oj>p.  iv.  4. 


-« 


"Love  sets  my  heart  on  fire ; 

Love  sets  my  heart  on  fire. 
When  thus  with  Christ  I  fought, 

Peace  made  we  after  ire ; 
For  first  from  Him  was  brought 

Dear  Love's  veracious  fire  ; 
And  love  of  Christ  has  brought 

Such  strength  I  cannot  tire ; 
•  He  dwells  in  soul  and  thought ; 

Love  sets  my  heart  on  fire." 

Or  take,  again,  in  proof  of  his  joyous  tender- 
ness, the  famous  Canticle  of  the  Sun,  or  of  the 
Creatures  : — 

"Praised  be  God  my  Lord 
With  all  Thy  creatures  ; 
Specially  by  my  lord,  our  brother,  the  Sun  : 
Fair  is  he,  and  shining  with  a  very  great  splendour. 
O  Lord,  he  signifies  to  us  Thee ; "  ^ 

and  so  on  through  others  of  God's  works — 
'  Pffiised  be  our  Lord  by  our  sister  the  Moon, 
and  the  Stars ;  and  by  our  brother  the  Wind  ; 
and  by  our  sister  the  Water,   for  she  is  very 

*  The  text  of  this  famous  song  and  translations  of  it  may  be 
found  in  Mrs.  Oliphant,  p.  235.  Ozanam,  Les  Poetes  Francis- 
cainSf  p.  71  ;  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold,  Essays  on  Criticism^ 
p.  200;  and  Milmau,  Laiin  Christianity. 

L   2 


148 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.       [serm.  iv. 


SERM.  IV.]     EARLY  FRANCISCANS, 


serviceable,  and  humble,  and  precious,  and  pure; 
by  our  brother  the  Fire,  jocund,  and  beautiful, 
and  most  robust  and  strong;  and  by  our  mother 
the  Earth,  and  by  our  sister ' — what  think  you  ? 
— '  by  our  sister  the  Death  of  the  body.'     So 
wrote    this    humble    and    holy    man    of    heart, 
who    had    a    vision    of    all    things    in    God  ; 
and    then   he   added    a   verse   to   reconcile  the 
struggling   factions   of   Assissi,   and   by   it   did 
bring   about   their   mutual    reconciliation,   even 
with   tears.      "  Praised   be   our   Lord    by  those 
who  pardon  one  another  for  love  of  Thee,  and 
bear  weaknesses  and  troubles  ;  blessed  be  those 
who  shall  endure   in   peace,   for   by  the    Most 
Highest   they  shall  be  crowned."     No  wonder 
that  he  who  thus  loved  God's  creatures   loved 
also    his    brother    man.       "  If    a    brother    has 
sinned,"  he  wrote  to  one  of  his  order,  "  however 
great  his  fault  may  be;    if  he  has  once  been 
brought  before  you,  let  him  not  depart  till  he 
has   felt   your  mercy."     And  again :    "  By  one 
mark    only   can    I    know  whether  thou   art   a 
servant  of  Gid,  namely,  if  thou  compassionately 


149 


bringest  back  wandering  brethren  to  God,,  and 
never  ceasest  to  love  those  who  grievously  err." 

Such  songs,  my  brethren,  and  such  rules  are 
the  echoes  of  a  heart  that  has  learnt  the 
Apostle's  precept :  "  Rejoice  in  the  Lord  al- 
ways ;  and  again  I  say,  rejoice."  "  Because," 
says  Bonaventura,  "  they  possessed  nothing 
earthly,  loved  nothing  earthly,  and  feared  to 
lose  nothing  earthly  ;  they  were  secure  in  all 
places ;  troubled  by  no  fears,  distracted  by  no 
cares ;  they  lived  without  trouble  of  mind,  wait- 
ing without  anxiety  for  the  coming  day,  or  the 
night's  lodging." 

6.  My  brethren,  if  this  exquisite,  humble  life, 
with  its  magic  charm,  have  not  taught  you  its 
own  lessons,  without  further  words  of  mine,  my 
purpose  has  failed.  Again,  I  say,  I  do  not 
dream  of  suggesting  to  any  one  that  he  should 
imitate  the  external  form  of  these  lives  of  which 
we  have  been  speaking.  The  worst  sinner  could 
do  that,  and  it  would  be  absolutely  worthless. 
Even  St.  Francis  saw  that  in  his  austerities  he 
had   gone  too  far.      "  I  have  sinned,"  he  said, 


I50 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,       [serm.  iv. 


SERM.  IV.  ]     EARL  V  ERANCISCANS. 


151 


"  against  my  brother  the  ass,"  meaning  thereby 
his  mortal  body.  He  even  doubted  in  his 
tender  conscience  whether,  in  weakening  his 
own  natural  powers  by  extreme  asceticism,  he 
had  not  sinned,  almost  unpardonably,  against 
God.  His  Order  of  Mendicant  Friars  rapidly 
degenerated,  involving  as  it  did  an  ideal  which 
could  not  be  permanently  maintained.  But  it 
is  no  small  element  in  our  admiration  of  the 
Umbrian  saint  that  he  founded  the  Order  of 
the  Tertiaries  expressly  for  those  who  could 
only  live  in  the  world.  And,  however  extreme 
his  needless  austerities,  let  us  not  dream  of 
judging  him  ;  let  us  speak  of  him  more  lovingly 
than  the  historian  who  calls  him  "a  mild  en- 
thusiast, not  perfectly  sane."     For — 

'•  When  God  shall  judge  the  world,  I  take  it 

He  will  not  mete  this  man  by  rule  or  line, 
Who  felt  no  common  thirst,  nor  feared  to  slake  it 

From  that  which  flowed  within  him— the  Divine. 
Or  think  you  God  loves  our  tame  level  acres 

More  than  the  proud  head  of  some  heaven-kissed  hill  ? 
Man's  straight-dug  ditch  more  than  His  own  free  river. 

That  wanders,  God  rcj^arding,  where  it  will?"* 


*  Focms,  by  J.  Rhoades. 


And  one  thing  assuredly  we  all  can  learn  from 
St.  Francis  of  Assissi  and  his  truest  followers. 
It  is  to  live  lives  more  simple,  less  luxurious, 
more  contented  with  a  little,  less  absorbed  in 
earthly  interests.  In  an  age  when  simplicity — 
simplicity  in  dress,  in  surroundings,  in  eating  and 
drinking — is  eminently  necessary  for  all,  and 
above  all  for  the  young  ;  in  an  age  when  there  is 
far  too  much  of  domestic  and  of  family  egotism  ; 
in  an  age  when  even  good  men  on  every  side 
fall  off,  we  know  not  how, 

"To  selfishness,  disguised  m  gentle  names 
Of  peace,  and  quiet,  and  domestic  love ; " 

in  an  age  when  too  many  sell  themselves  for 
handfuls  of  silver  and  for  pieces  of  bread,  we 
can  learn  from  him,  and  from  the  hap- 
piness and  influence  which  God  granted  him, 
the  spirit  of  that  lesson  which  he  had  learnt 
from  the  example  of  Christ — the  lesson,  namely, 
to  increase  our  possessions  by  limiting  our 
desires  ;  to  sit  more  loose  to  worldly  luxuries 
and  worldly  ambitions ;  to  scorn  the  too-paltry 


tri 


152 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,        [serm.  iv. 


English  ideal  of  mere  vulgar  comfort ;  to  brave 
abuse,  and  loss,  and  hatred,  for  the  cause  of 
what  we  hold  to  be  the  truth;  to  learn  that 
the  world  will  sink  into  nothing  for  him  to 
whom  God  is  all. 

"What  is  man, 
If  the  chief  use  and  market  of  his  time 
Is  but  to  sleep  and  feed?    A  beast— no  more." 


It  is  not  gold  or  silver ;  it  is  not  land  or 
houses ;  it  is  not  a  flourishing  business  or 
hoarded  funds  that  constitute  true  riches. 
These  things  are  haunted  by  meagre  desires 
and  distracting  cares.  The  true  riches  are 
health,  and  a  pure  heart,  and  love  of  Christ, 
and  love  to  man,  and  perfect  trust  in  the 
sustaining  providence  of  God,  and  a  cheerful 
spirit,  and  a  noble  charity.  "  Unto  the  angel 
of  the  Church  of  the  Laodiceans  write ;  Be- 
cause thou  sayest,  I  am  rich,  and  increased  with 
goods,  and  have  need  of  nothing ;  and  knowest 
not  that  thou  art  wretched,  and  miserable,  and 
poor,  1  counsel    thee   to  buy  gold  of   me,  that 


I 


i 


SERM.  IV.]     EARLY  FRANCISCANS, 


153 


thou  mayest  be  rich."  But  "  to  the  angel  of  the 
Church  in  Smyrna  write  ;  I  know  thy  works, 
and  tribulation,  and  poverty ;  but  thou  art 
rich."  And  to  all  men  alike,  and  above  all 
to  men  wearying  themselves  in  the  very  fire 
for  the  unsatisfying  and  uncertain  goods  of 
earth,  "  The  blessing  of  the  Lord,  that  maketh 
rich,  and  He  addcth  no  sorrow  with  it" 


» 


SERMON  V. 


THE    MISSIONARIES. 


I 


THE  MISSIONARIES. 


ti 


u 


And  I  saw  another  angel  fly  in  the  midst  of  heaven,  having 
the  everlasting  gospel  to  preach  unto  them  that  dwell  on  the 
earth,  and  to  every  nation,  and  kindred,  and  tongue,  and  people, 
saying  with  a  loud  voice,  Fear  God,  and  give  glory  to  him  ;  for 
the  hour  of  His  judgment  is  come:  and  worship  Him  that  made 
heaven,  and  earth,  and  the  sea,  and  the  fountains  of  waters."— 
Rev.  XIV.  6,  7. 

"  Yes,  or  if  loose  and  free,  as  some  are  telling, 
(Little  I  know  it  and  I  little  care). 
This  my  poor  lodge,  my  transitory  dwelling, 
Swings  in  the  bright  deep  of  the  endless  air,— 

**  Round  it  and  round  His  prophets  shall  proclaim  Him, 
Springing  thenceforth  and  hurrying  therethro*, 
Each  to  the  next  the  generations  name  Him, 
Honour  unendmgly  and  know  anew." 

Myers,  Sf.  Paul, 


4 


\t 


i 


SERMON  V. 

TIf£  MISSIONARIES^ 

Is.  Lii.  7. 

**  How  beautiful  upon  the  mountains  are  the  feet  of  him  that 
bringeth  good  tidings ^  that publisheth  peace." 

• 

We  have  been  throwing  a  rapid  glance,  my 
brethren,  at  some  of  the  ideals  of  holiness 
which  prevailed  among  the  Saintly  Workers  of 
the  past,  and  we  have  been  doing  so  with  the 
humble  and  simple  desire  to  learn  lessons  for 
the  present.  You  will  have  seen  from  the  very 
first  that  I  have  had  in  view  no  shadow  of  any 
controversial  thought ;  that  I  have  aimed  at 
nothing  which  could,  in  the  most  distant  degree, 
awaken  a  single  legitimate  suspicion.  Some 
have  fancied  that  these  lectures  were  meant  to 

*  Preached  in  St.  Andrew's,  Holbom,  April  II,  1878. 


r 


1 60 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,        [serm.  v. 


evoke  some  latent  sympathy  with  erring  be- 
liefs, some  concealed  antagonism  to  Protestant 
principles.  I  can  only  look  with  sorrow  upon 
such  suspicions  ;  I  can  only,  with  all  earnest- 
ness, disclaim  such  motives.  You,  my  brethren, 
will  long  ago  have  recognised  how  thoroughly  we 
have  tried  to  keep  in  view  the  warning  that,  in 
"unwinding  the  cerements  of  antiquity,  we 
should  not  be  contaminated  with  their  dust." 
To  revive  the  obsolete,  to  resuscitate  the  de- 
cayed, to  imitate  the  external,  to  reintroduce 
the  evils  and  errors  of  the  past  because  we  may 
profit  by  the  contemplation  of  its  heroism  and 
its  self-denials,  has  (as  you  will  have  recognised) 
never  remotely  entered  into  our  intentions.  We 
have  but  striven  to  be  edified  as  faithful  Chris- 
tians; we  have  but  tried  to  realise  "the  com- 
munion of  saints  ;"  we  have  but  raised  our  eyes 
to  the  beacon-lights  upon  the  hills  which  show 
how  high  our  brethren  in  Gods  family  have 
climbed  ;  we  have  but  tried  to  learn  from  them 
how  they  were  enabled,  by  Christ's  spirit,  to 
follow  His  steps  and  bear  His  cross.     Oh,  that 


If, 


SERM.  v.]        THE  MISSIONARIES. 


161 


all  bitterness  and  all  disunions  among  us  were 
over !  Oh  for  more  of  the  unity  of  the  spirit 
in  the  bond  of  peace !  Oh  that  we  could  all 
learn  more  of  the  tone  of  St.  Columban,  when 
the  French  bishops  wanted  to  enforce  his  obe- 
dience to  their  time  of  observing  Easter.  "  Let 
France,"  he  said — and  may  not  we  say,  "  Let 
the  Church  of  England.'*" — "receive  into  her 
bosom  all  who,  if  they  deserve  it,  will  meet 
in  one  heaven.  For  we  have  one  kingdom 
promised  us — we  ha-ve  one  hope  of  our  calling 
in  Christ,  with  whom  we  shall  reign  together 
if  we  suffer  with  Him  here  on  earth.  Choose 
ye  which  rule  ye  will  respecting  Easter,"  con- 
tinued the  saint ;  "  but  let  us  not  quarrel  with 
one  another,  lest  our  enemies  rejoice.  In  com- 
munion with  Christ  let  us  learn  to  love  one 
another,  and  pray  for  one  another,  that  with 
Him  we  may  together  reign  for  evermore."^ 
2.   To-day,  and  for  the  last  time,  we  glance, 

*  Maclear,  Apostles  of  Melitrval  Europe,  p.  64.  I  have  also 
referred  to  the  charming  sketch  of  St.  Columban  in  Ozanam's 
Etudes  GeinianiqueSf  ii.,  103- 114. 

M 


f 


I-' 


162 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,         [serm.  v. 


my  brethren,  at  yet  another  class  of  saintly 
workers.  The  age  of  frequent  Martyrdom  is 
past ;  the  age  of  the  Hermits  is  past ;  the  age 
of  Monasticism  is  past ;  the  needed  protest  of 
the  Dominicans  and  Franciscans  very  rapidly 
degenerated  from  its  original  sincerity,  and  ex- 
pended its  original  force.^  But  the  day  for 
missions  is  not  past,  nor  ever  will  be  till  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world  have  become  the  king- 
doms of  our  Lord,  and  of  His  Christ.  And 
sure  I  am  that  all  which  was  good  and  holy  in 
bygone  ideals  of  self-devotion  may  be  per- 
petuated in  the  best  forms  of  goodness  which 
are  possible  to-day.  It  needed  not  the  stake 
or  the  Tullianum  to  make  the  Martyr,  but  the 
intense  conviction  that  he  who  lost  his  life  for 
Christ's  sake  should  find  it.  It  was  not  the 
cavern  and  the  desert  which  constituted  the 
Hermit's  virtue,  but  the  spirit  of  "  interior  soli- 
tude," ^  and  the  belief  that  the  life  was  more 

*  We  see  this  eren  in  the  warnings  of  Dante,  though  he  is 
full  of  admiration  for  the  ideal  of  both. 

^  "  Secum  habitavit,"  says  St.  Gregory  of  St.  Benedict. 


i 


k 


SERM.  v.]        THE  MISSIONARIES. 


163 


than  meat,  and  the  body  than  raiment.  It  was 
not  from  the  tonsure  and  the  scapulary  that  the 
Monk  derived  his  usefulness,  but  from  that  de- 
terminate self-conquest  which  sprang  from  his 
sense  of  the  exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin.  'There 
was  no  merit  in  the  sandals  and  girdle  of  the 
Franciscan,  but  in  his  utter  superiority  to  the 
allurements  of  the  world.  And  all  these  lessons 
have  come  down  as  a  heritage  to  age  after  age 
of  mission  workers.  Speaking  of  the  era  of 
classic  glory,  the  poet  asks  : — 

"Ancient  of  Days',  august  Athena!    Where, 
Where  are  thy  men  of  might?   thy  grand  in  soul? 
Gone— glimmering  through  the  dream  of  things  that  were  : 
First  in  the  race  that  led  to  Glory's  goal. 
They  won,  and  passed  away.     Is  this  the  whole? 
A  schoolboy's  tale,  the  wonder  of  an  hour  ! 
The  warrior's  weapon  and  the  sophist's  stole 
Are  sought  in  vain,  and  o'er  each  mouldering  tower 

Dim  with  the  mist  of  years  grey  flits  the  shade  of  power  !  '* 

But  however  much  the  dreams  of  human 
pride  and  the  splendour  of  human  intellect 
may  pass  away,  the  lives  and  labours  of  good 
men  in  no  wise  pass  away  with  their  external 

M  2 


164 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.         [serm.  v. 


surroundings.      Nay,    far   rather   they   are    the 
seed  sown  in  weeping,  of  which  others,  it  may 
be    long    centuries    afterwards,   gather   in     the 
sheaves  with  joy.      What  could  seem  more  alien 
from  the  spirit  of  a  Romish  monk  than  that  of 
a  Baptist  missionary }   Yet  it  was  David  Living- 
stone— who  most   assuredly  had    no    medixval 
sentiments  or  Romish  proclivities — who  pointed 
to  the  ancient  monks  as  teaching  lessons  to  the 
modern  missionaries.     "  They  did  not,"  he  said, 
"disdain  to  hold  the  plough.     They  introduced 
fruit-trees,    flowers,    vegetables,    in   addition    to 
teaching    and    emancipating    the    serfs.     Their 
monasteries    were    mission-stations,    which    re- 
sembled   ours    in    being    dispensaries    for   the 
sick,  almshouses  for  the  poor,  and  nurseries  of 
learning.     Can  we  learn  nothing  from  them  in 
their  prosperity  as  the  schools  of  Europe,  and 
see   naught   in   history   but   the   pollution    and 
laziness  of  their  decay  } " 

3.  But  though  the  other  types  of  self-dedica- 
tion  have    become    partly  or  wholly  extinct, — ' 
though  each  age  has  altered  the  device   upon 


SFRM.  v.]        THE  MISSIONARIES. 


i65 


the  current  gold  of  nobleness  and  self-devotion, 
— the  missionaries  (as  Christ  commanded  them) 
have  continued    unbroken  their  Christ-like  toil. 
Even  the  old   dispensation   lacked  not  its  mis- 
sionaries, from    Noah,  down    to   Jonah    and   to 
Daniel.      But  since   Christ    gave  His  last  com- 
mand  to    His   assembled    disciples,  there  have 
ever  been  some  who  felt  that  it  was  their  more 
special  call  to  obey  it.     St.  Paul  was  not  one  of 
those  who  heard   it,  but  was,  as    it  were,  "the 
abortive-born  "1    in    the    apostolic    family,    yet 
what  a  type  and  model  of  all  missionaries  was 
he !     That  life  of  his  as  it  stands  revealed  to  us 
in  his  own  Epistles,  how  sad  it  was,  and   how 
fruitful!     From    that  day  on  which,  blind    and 
trembling,  and  with   the   scars   of    God's   own 
thunder  on  his  soul,  he  had  staggered  into  the 
streets    of     Damascus,    what    a    tragedy    had 
encompassed    him    of    ever-deepening    gloom ! 
That  first  peril,  when  he  had  been  let  down  in 
a   basket   through   a  window— the  flights  from 
assassination— the  hot  disputes  at  Antioch— the 

*  aairepel  ry  iKTpwfxaTi. — I  Cor.  XV.  0. 


n 


1 66 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.         [serm.  v. 


expulsion  from  Iconium — the  stoning  at  Lystra 
— the  quarrel  with  his  own  heart's  brother — the 
acute  spasms  of  that  impalement  by  the  stake 
in  the  flesh  at  Galatia — the  agony  in  Macedonia 
of  outward  fightings  and  inward  fears — the  ^v^ 
Jewish  scourgings — the  three  Roman  flagella- 
tions— the  polished  scorn  of  Athens — the  fac- 
tious violence  of  Corinth — the  streaming  tears 
of  the  parting  at  Miletus — the  gnashing  fury  of 
Jewish  mobs — the  illegal  insolence  of  provincial 
tribunals  ; — these  were  but  a  fragment,  and  a 
small  fragment,  of  his  trials  and  miseries. 
Even  the  brute  forces  of  nature  seemed  to  be 
against  him — he  had  to  struggle  in  her  rushing 
watercourses,  to  faint  in  her  sultry  deserts,  to 
toss  for  long  days  and  nights  in  leaky  vessels 
on  her  tempestuous  seas.  This  was  the  perilous, 
persecuted  life  on  which  he  had  to  look  back 
as  he  sat  chained  to  the  rude  legionary  in  that 
dreary  Roman  prison.  He  seemed  to  have 
found  no  result  from  all  his  labours,  no  reward 
for  all  his  immense  self-sacrifice.  He  seemed 
to  have  been  abandoned  and  forgotten  by  the 


SERM.  v.]        THE  MISSIONARIES. 


167 


very  churches  which  he  had  loved.  Nor  did  any 
sunbeam  gild  even  the  last  unrecorded  scene. 
See  the  bent,  grey  weak  old  man,  led  by  the 
soldier  along  the  Appian  Road ;  see  the  sword 
flash  and  the  head  fall ;  and  which,  think  you, 
of  that  small  handful  of  weeping  Christian 
brethren  could  have  dreamed  in  his  wildest 
dream,  that,  to  that  poor  martyr's  glorious 
memory,  shrines  more  magnificent  than  that  of 
the  Capitolian  Jupiter  should  tower  over  cities 
more  glorious  than  Imperial  Rome,  long  cen- 
turies after  the  "insulting  vanity"  of  triumph 
had  ceased,  and  "  silent  vestal "  and  "  chiefest 
pontifex"  had  become  forgotten  names  .^^  Nor 
did  the  saint,  the  martyr  himself,  dream  of  it. 
His  thoughts  were  not  of  earthly  crowns.  He 
asked  the  service,  not  the  payment ;  the  battle, 
not  the  victory.  Type  of  all  true  missionary 
lives,  his  was  "  the  faith  triumphant  in  failure, 
which  is  better  than  self-congratulation  on  any 
visible  results." 

4.  And    for    three    centuries    after  him   the 
whole  Church  led   more  or  less   of  a   mission 


1 68 


SAINTLY  WOJiKERS.        [serm.  v. 


I 


life.  But  missions  in  a  directer  sense  —  the 
setting  forth  of  Christian  men  to  preach  the 
Gospel  in  heathen  lands  —  became  specially 
memorable  in  the  fourth  and  following  centu- 
ries. From  point  to  point,  like  the  flashing  of 
a  glad  signal  from  hill  to  hill,  the  heralds  of 
the  Gospel  sped  on  its  light.  In  the  fourth 
century  Ulphilas  had  been  the  apostle  of  the 
Goths.  In  the  fifth  St.  Patrick  converted 
Ireland.  In  the  sixth  St.  Columba  began  that 
holy  work  which  makes  "the  heart  glow  amid 
the  ruins  of  lona,"  and  St.  Columbanus  carried 
to  the  shores  of  the  Swiss  Lakes  the  lessons 
of  truth  and  the  examples  of  holy  living. 
In  the  seventh  century,  struck  by  the 
beauty  of  the  fair-haired  Saxon  slaves  in  the 
market-place  of  Rome — Non  Angli,  sed  An- 
gdi,  si  essent  Christ i — Gregory  despatched  St. 
Augustine  to  become  the  first  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury.  When  England  had  been  con- 
verted she  sent  forth  St.  Willibrod  in  the 
eii^hth  century  to  the  shores  of  Northern  Ger- 
many, and   St.  Boniface  to  traverse  undaunted 


• 


SERM.  v.]         THE  MISSIONARIES. 


169 


the  Thuringian  wilds ;    and  when  the  Scandi- 
navian vikings  were  becoming   the   scourge   of 
every  nation,  and  the  terror  of  every  sea,  in  the 
ninth  century,  an  Anskar,  and,  in  the  eleventh, 
an  Olaf,  won  thetn   also  to  the  faith  of  Christ, 
and  the  main  work  of  the  missionary  apostolate 
in  Europe  was  achieved.     He  who  sits  on  the 
hill    at    Canterbury    may   recall    (as    has    been 
pointed  out)  how,  from  the  mission-work  of  the 
little   band    of   monks,    headed    by   Augustine, 
which  advanced  with  beating  hearts  to   preach 
under  the   oak   to  the  Pagan    Ethelbert,    there 
sprang    th.u*    first     English     Christian    city    of 
Canterbur)^    and    that    first    English    Christian 
kingdom  of  Kent,  which  has  expanded  into  the 
Christian    empire   of  Great  Britain,    and  which 
involved  in  its  vast    issues   the   conversion   not 
only  of  Germany,  but  also  of  North  America,  of 
Australasia,  of  the  far  Pacific  Islands,^— and  who 
can  tell  of  what  future  empires  and  kingdoms, 
in    circle    after  circle  of  ever-broadening  light, 

>  See  Dean  Stanley,  Memorials  of  Canterbury^  p.  39. 


lyo 


SAINTL  Y  WORKERS.         [serm.  v. 


till  the  glory  of  the  Lord  shall  cover  the  earth 
as  the  waters  cover  the  sea  ? 

5.  At  two  of  these  earlier  British  missionaries 
whom  I  have  named  (St.  Columban  and  St. 
Boniface)  let  me  for  a  moment  glance. 

St.  Columban  was  an  Irish  monk,  on  whom, 
at  the   age  of  thirty,  came  the  strong  mission 
fervour  to  preach  to  the  pagan  tribes  of  Europe. 
With  twelve  companions   he  sailed  to   France, 
and  passed  through  the  country,  preaching  on 
his  way,  till  he  reached  and  settled  among  the 
wild  hills  and  pine-groves  of  the  Vosges.    There 
his  monks  lived,  clearing  the  woods  and  tilling 
the  fields  in  prayer,  and  labour,  and  obedience. 
"Whosoever  overcomes    himself,"   said  Colum- 
ban, "treads  the  world  under  foot.      If  we  have 
conquered    ourselves,    we    have    conquered    all 
things.      Let   us   die   unto   ourselves.      Let   us 
live  in  Christ,  that  Christ  may  live  in  us."     Of 
course  he  met  with  persecution ;   all  good  men 
do.    He  was  persecuted  by  bishops  whose  laxity 
his  life  rebuked.     He  was  persecuted  by  kings 
and  queens  whose  vices  he   openly  denounced. 


. 


SERM.  v.]         THE  MISSIONARIES. 


171 


In  spite  of  this  he  carried  on  for  many  years  that 
Laus pcrcnnis,  that  service  of  song  and  prayer, 
unbroken  through  every  hour  of  the  day  and 
night,  which  struck  the  imagination  of  the  care- 
less, and  was  accepted  as  a  source  of  spiritual 
blessing  by  a  troubled  and  tumultuous  world. 
He  was  at  last  driven  from  the  country,  and 
settled  on  the  Lake  of  Zurich  ;  but  his  life- 
long witness  of  prayer,  and  labour,  and  medi- 
tation, and  the  bold  antagonism  to  sin,  had  not 
been  in  vain.  "  He  had  stood  among  wild 
warriors  a  witness  to  an  unseen  power  greater 
than  that  of  earth  ;  an  apostle  of  spiritual  ser- 
vice harder  than  their  own,  speaking  with  a 
stern  majesty  of  acts  which  appealed  to  their 
senses,  and  awakening  hopes  not  quenched  by 
the  battle  or  the  feast.  "^  His  work  was  con- 
tinued by  his  friend  and  follower  Callus,  who 
reclaimed  the  people  from  barbarism  and 
taught  them  both  agriculture  and  religion, 
and  over  whose  humble   cell  rose  that   magrni- 

^  Wescott.     A   sketch  of    St.    Columban   may  be   found   in 
Ozanam,  Etudes  Gernianiqucs^  ii.,  103-I14. 


^ 


172 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,         [serm.  v. 


ficcnt  monastery  of  St.  Gall  which  centuries 
afterwards  was  one  of  the  most  celebrated 
schools  of  Christendom,  and  one  of  the  principal 
centres  of  intellect  and  light  in  the  Germanic 

world.  ^ 

6.  Still  wider  and  grander  was  the  work  of 
St.  Boniface.  When  he  was  a  lad  in  Devon- 
shire, his  heart  first  burned  with  the  desire  to 
serve  God.  Fearlessly  piercing  the  dark  forests 
of  Germany,  he  won  over  the  heathen  in  thou- 
sands by  his  self-denial,  his  toils,  his  courage. 
Near  Gcismar,  in  Upper  Hesse,  there  stood 
a  vast  and  venerable  oak  sacred  for  ages  to 
T^inr,  the  God  of  Thunder.  It  has  been  an 
instinct  of  idolatry  in  all  ages  to  pay  idolatrous 
reverence  to  great  and  aged  trees,  and  St. 
Boniface  tried  in  vain  to  win  the  Teutons  from 
their  superstitious  adoration  to  the  Thunderer's 
Oak.  At  last,  as  a  desperate  remedy,  he  seized 
an  axe,  and,  with  his  clergy,  advanced,  amid 
the  breathless  alarm  and  wonder  of  the  pagans 
to  hew  down    the  object   of  their   immemorial 

^  Moutalembeit,  Monks  of  the  West^  li.  461. 


SERM.  v.]        THE  MISSIONARIES. 


"^n 


I 


worship.       Stroke    after    stroke   rang    on    the 
gnarled   trunk,  while  the  priests    of  Thor  im- 
plored their  deity  to  avenge  himself,  and  the 
pagans  thought  at  each  moment  that  the  flash 
of  Heaven  would  fall.i     At  last,  with  a  mighty 
crash,  the   huge   oak   fell,  and   splintered    into 
fragments.     Out  of  its  fragments  Boniface  built 
the  chapel  to  St.  Peter.     Day  by  day  his  con- 
verts multiplied,  and  the  sphere  of  his  influence 
widened.     Recognising   his   glorious  work,    the 
Pope   made   him   Archbishop   of    Mainz.     But 
even  at  seventy-five  the   fire   of  zeal  was  not 
quenched  in  the  old  man's  heart.      He  resi^-ned 
his   archbishopric,  and  went   to  preach   to   the 
heathen  Frisians,  ordering  a  shroud  to  be  put 
up  with  his  books.     A  hostile  band  of  pagans 
met  him  on  a  river   bank,    and,  forbidding   all 
resistance,  he  obtained  the  crown  of  martyrdom 
for  which  he  longed.     The   manuscript  of  the 
Gospel,   which   he   carried    at    the    moment   of 

^  Maclear,  p.  115.  For  a  life  of  St.  Columban,  see  Mont- 
alembert,  Monks  of  the  West,  bk.  vii.  Ozanam,  Etudes  Ger- 
vianiqueSf  ii.  170-220. 


174 


SAINTL  V  WORKERS,        [serm.  v. 


death,  was  stained  with  his  blood,  and  it  is  still 
shown  as  a  sacred  relic  among  the  treasures  of 
the  great  mo'nastery  of  St.  Fulda. 

7.  If  these  two  may  stand  as  specimens  of 
those  earlier  missionaries  who  converted  Europe, 
Raymond  Lulli  may  show  what  a  missionary  of 
the  thirteenth  century  could  sacrifice  and  dare. 
A  man  of  immense  learning  and  splendid 
ability,  his  youth  had  been  devoted  to  gaiety 
and  sin,  when  he  was  won  to  holier  aims 
by  a  sermon  of  a  Franciscan  friar,  in  which 
he  told  the  story  of  St.  Francis  of  Assissi, 
who  had  then  been  dead  some  forty  years. 
It  was  the  age  of  the  Crusades,  but  Ray- 
mond Lulli  thought,  as  Francis  had  thought, 
that  it  would  be  better  to  convert  the  Saracens 
than  to  slay  them.  With  incredible  toil,  with 
unflagging  zeal,  in  a  life  of  incessant  hardships 
and  perils,  this  great  man,  the  fame  of  whose 
genius  was  on  every  tongue,  whose  logic  was 
long  in  use  in  the  schools  of  Europe,  devoted 
himself  to  his  great  purpose  with  scarce  one 
voice  to  encourage,  or  one  friend  to  share  his 


SERM   V  ]        THE  MISSIONARIES. 


175 


labours.  The  last  year  of  his  life  was  spent  at 
Bugia  in  concealment,  but  secretly  preaching  to 
Jews  and  Mohammedans.  One  day,  June  30, 
I3'5»  he  ventured  forth  from  the  hiding-place, 
and,  openly  preaching  to  the  people,  was  as- 
sailed by  the  fury  of  the  Moslem  population, 
and  stoned  to  death.  ^ 

8.  But  perhaps  no  missionary  who  ever  lived 
was  greater  than  Francis  Xavier,  in  the  sixteenth 
century.     A   son   of    the   lords   of   Xavier,   he 
entered  the  University  of  Paris,  and  there  rose 
into  brilliant  reputation.     Among  the  crowd  of 
the  wealthy  and   the  noble  who    thronged  his 
lectures   stood  day  by  day  the  stern  figure  of 
the  quondam  Spanish  knight,  Ignatius  Loyola, 
and  his   sordid  dress  and   stern  bearing  were 
often  the  butt  of  Xavier's  ridicule.     Yet  Igna- 
tius did  not  leave  him.     Constantly  with  him, 
in  business,  in  pleasure,  in  discussion,  in  amuse- 
ment,   in    exercise,    in    society,   he    invariably 
ended  every  meeting  with  the  one  awful  ques- 
tion :  "What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the 

*  See  an  account  of  his  genius  in  Vu  des  Savans  lllustres. 


176 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.         [serm.  v. 


SERM.  v.]        THE  MISSIONARIES. 


177 


whole  world  and   lose  his  own  soul  ? "     When 
the  popularity  of  Xavier  failed,  Ignatius  revived 
it,   but   still   with    the   same   question,    "What 
shall    it    profit  ? "     When    his    resources   were 
wasted  by  extravagance,  Ignatius  resupplied  his 
wants,  but  still  with  the  same  question,  "  What 
shall  it  profit?"     In   success,  in   happiness,   in 
pleasure,    always    the    same   question,    '*What 
shall    it   profit?"     At   last    that    question    was 
burnt    in    upon    the    young    man's    soul,    and 
joining    the    Order    of    Jesus,    which    Ignatius 
had   founded,  he  surpassed  all  the  rest  in  his 
austerities   and   penances.     At  this  time   John 
III.    of   Portugal  desired  to  plant    Christianity 
in    India,   and    Xavier   embraced    with   delight 
the  awful  and  perilous  mission.      Imbued  with 
the    stern    error   that    the    crushing    of    every 
natural  affection  was  a  duty  which  Christianity 
required,    he    passed    without    a    farewell    the 
castle    in   which   his    mother    and    sister    lived, 
and  embarked  penniless  and  possessionless  on 
a    vessel    bound    for   Goa.      During   the   long 
months  of  the  voyage  he  lived  entirely  on  the 


scraps  given  him  by  the  soldiers  and  sailors  ; 
but  so  entirely  did  he  win  the  love  of  all  on 
board  by  tending  the  sick  and  consoling  the 
sorrowful,  and  trying  to  reclaim  the  sinful, 
that,  though  he  landed  in  all  the  emaciation  of 
disease  and  weakness,  IJs  shipmates  regarded 
him  as  the  happiest  man  of  the  crowded  and 
suffering  crew.  How  he  was  shocked  by  the 
depravities  of  Goa— how  he  taught  the  children 
there— how  he  went  to  work  among  the  poor 
degraded  pearl-fishers  of  the  Straits  of  Manaar 
—how  he  laboured  at  Cape  Comorin— how  he 
converted  thousands,  and  baptised  tens  of 
thousands— how  he  crossed  to  Travancore  and 
inspired  the  Rajah  to  repel  a  hostile  invasion- 
how  he  reformed  the  guilty  city  of  Malacca- 
how,  with  calm  intrepidity,  he  carried  on  un- 
moved the  offices  of  religion  while  an  earth- 
quake was  rocking  the  very  ground  under  his 
feet— how,  amid  incredible  dangers  and  violent 
opposition,  he  made  his  way  to  Japan- how  he 
met  and  foiled  the  bonzes— how  returning  to 
Goa    he   tended    the  people  during  a   raging 

N 


178 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.         [serm.  v. 


SERM.  v.]        THE  MISSIONARIES. 


179 


pestilence — all  his  learning,  all  the  sagacity,  all 
the  patience,  all  the  boundless  self-denial,  all 
the  immense  empire  and  authority  over  the 
minds  of  men  which  that  self-conquest  gained 
for  him,  you  may  read  in  the  records  of  his  life. 
But  in  his,  as  in  so  many  previous  cases,  I 
should  like  you  to  observe  the  abounding  joy 
and  happiness  which  he  experienced  in  the 
midst  of  squalor,  disease,  starvation,  hatred, 
suffering.  On  one  occasion  he  "baptised  till 
his  hand  dropped  with  weariness,  and  his  voice 
became  inaudible;  experiencing,  as  he  says,  in 
his  whole  soul  a  joy  which  it  would  be  vain  to 
attempt  to  express  either  in  writing  or  by 
speech."  "So  intense,"  he  wrote  on  another 
occasion,  "and  abundant  are  the  delights  which 
God  is  accustomed  to  bestow  on  those  who 
labour  diligently  in  His  service  in  the  vineyard 
in  this  barbarous  land,  that  if  there  be,  in  this 
life,  any  true  solid  enjoyment,  I  believe  it  to  be 
this,  and  this  alone. "  And  how  did  he  die  }  I 
will  read  you  the  description.  He  was  trying 
to  make  his  way  to  China  to  plant  the  Gospel 


f 


there,  when  the  angel  of  death  met  him  on  his 
wild  and  perilous  journey.  "At  his  own  re- 
quest he  was  removed  to  the  shore  that  he 
might  meet  his  end  with  greater  composure. 
Stretched  on  the  naked  beach,  with  the  cold 
blasts  of  a  Chinese  winter  aggravating  his  pains, 
he  contended  alone  with  the  agonies  of  the 
fever  which  wasted  his  vital  powers.  It  was 
an  agony  and  a  solitude  for  which  the  happiest 
of  the  sons  of  men  might  well  have  exchanged 
the  dearest  society  and  the  purest  joys  of  life. 
It  was  an  agony  in  which  his  uplifted  crucifix 
reminded  him  of  a  far  more  awful  woe  endured 
for  his  deliverance.  It  was  a  solitude  thronged 
by  blessed  ministers  of  invisible  consolation." 
Tears  burst  from  his  fading  eyes,  tears  of  an  emo- 
tion too  big  for  utterance.  In  the  cold  collapse 
of  death  his  features  were,  for  a  few  brief  moment, 
irradiated  as  with  the  first  beams  of  approaching 
glory.  He  raised  himself  on  his  crucifix,  and 
exclaiming  *  In  te,  Domine,  speravi — non  confun- 
dar  in  reternum  1 '  he  bowed  his  head  and  died."  ^ 

^  Sir  J.  Stephen,  Essays  in  Ecclesiastical  Biography^  ii.  138. 

N    2 


I  So 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.         [serm.  v. 


9.  And,  my  brethren,  what  shall  I  more  say  ? 
The  time  would  fail  me  were  I  to  attempt  even 
the  catalogue  of  all  the  true  saints  and  dauntless 
heroes  of  the  mission  cause  from  age  to  age. 
But  may  I,  without  wearying  you,  dwell  for  one 
moment  on  some  of  the  beloved  names  of  this 
last  century?  Let  me,  at  least,  make  passing 
mention  of  the  Moravian  Missionaries  in  Green- 
land, 

"Fired  with  a  zeal  peculiar  to  defy 
The  rage  and  rii^'our  of  a  polar  sky, 
And  plant  successfully  sweet  Sharon's  Rose 
On  icy  plains  and  in  eternal  snows ; "  * 

of  John  Eliot,  the  Apostle  of  the  Red  Indians, 
Avith  his  life  of  toil  and  gentleness,  and  his  motto 
that  prayer  and  painstaking  would  accomplish 
everything;  of  David  Brainerd,  living  alone 
among  the  savages  in  the  forests,  though  far 
advanced  in  consumption,  and  saying,  "  My 
heaven  is  to  please  God  and  glorify  Him"  ;  of 
the  just,  the  venerable,  the  generous,  the  simple- 
hearted  Schwartz ;  of  Henry  Martyn,  the  Cam- 

^  Cowper. 


SERM.  v.]        THE  MISSIONARIES. 


181 


t 


bridge  senior  wrangler,  as  we  see  his  pure  pale  face 
rising  above  his  foul  congregation  at  Cawnpore, 
and  pity  him  during  those  long  hours  of  linger- 
ing fever,  when  he  had  to  thrust  his  head  for 
rest  among  the  damp  boxes  of  his  luggage, 
till  he  sank  into  his  lonely  grave  in  the  plague- 
stricken  city  of  Tocat ;  of  ^oor  A  doniram  jfftdson, 
bright  and  cheerful  even  amid  the  horrors  of  a 
Burmese  prison  ;  of  Bishop  Reginald  Heber,  who, 
though  he  had  worked  but  two  years  in  India 
before  he  was  found  dead  in  his  bath,  yet  during 
those  two  years  had  breathed  into  his  tender 
lyrics  that  fire  and  dew  of  poetry  which  has 
done  so  much  to  sweeten  Indian  life  '}  of  Bishop 
Cotton,  and  the  six  years  of  wise  and  faithful 
energy  before  that  one  false  step  on  the  plank 
which  flung  him  into  the  turbid  river,  never  to 
be  seen  on  earth  again ;  of  Samtiel  Marsden, 
the  friend  of  the  Maories,  who  civilised  as  well 
as  taught  them,  and  whom  they  loved  and 
honoured  as  a  father, — 

^  Sketches  of  the  missionaries  mentioned  in  this  paragraph 
will  be  found  in  Miss  Yonge's  Pioneers  and  Founders. 


f 


l82 


SAINTL  Y  WORKERS.         [serm.  v. 


**  With  furrowed  brow  and  cheek  serenely  fair. 
The  calm  winds  wandering  o'er  his  silver  hair ; 
His  arm  uplifted,  and  his  moistened  eye 
Fixed  in  deep  rapture  on  the  golden  sky. 
Upon  the  shore,  through  many  a  billow  driven, 
He  kneels  at  last  the  messenger  of  Heaven. 
Yes  !  he  hath  triumphed  !  while  his  lips  relate 
The  sacred  story  of  his  Saviour's  fate, 
In  speechless  awe  the  wonder-stricken  throng 
Check  their  rude  feasting  and  their  barbarous  song,  .  ,  . 
And  kneel  in  gladness  on  their  native  plain, 
As  happier  votaries  at  a  holier  fane  1 "  * 

lo.  My  brethren,  what  lives  are  these !  how 
superior  to  ours,  which  are  so  murmuring,  so 
somnolent,  so  self-indulgent !  Are  not  our  lives, 
compared  to  the  lives  of  such  as  these,  as  the 
brambles  to  the  oaks  at  whose  feet  they  grow  ? 
Ay,  but  even  in  these  days,  even  in  our  own 
lifetime,  there  have  been  some,  who,  "  aiming  at 
something  more  high  and  heroical  in  religion 
than  this  age  afifecteth,"  have  even  glorified  the 
missionary's  labours  with  the  martyr's  crown. 
It  was  thus  that,  in  1840,  John  Williams  was 
murdered  among  the  heathens  of  Erromango  ; 
it  was  thus  that,  in  1845,  the  brave  sailor,  Allen 

*  Praed,  Australasia. 


SERM.  v.]        THE  MISSIONARIES. 


183 


Gardiner,  was  starved  to  death  in  the  long  Ant- 
arctic winter   at   Picton    Island,   while,  on   the 
cavern  near  which  his  skeleton  was  found,  he 
had  painted  up  the  words,  "  My  soul,  wait  thou 
still  upon  God,  for  my  hope  is  in  Him."     It  was 
thus   that,  in    1862,  Bishop  Charles  Mackenzie, 
after  a  life  that  looked  all  failure,  died  of  fatigue 
and  fever  amid  the  malarious   swamps  of  the 
Zambesi.     *'As  for  happiness,"  he   said  to  his 
sister  not  long  before  his  death,  "  I  have  given 
up  looking  for  that  altogether.     Now  till  death 
my  post  is  one  of  unrest  and  care.     To  be  the 
sharer  of  every  one's  sorrow,  the  comforter  of 
every  one's  grief,  the  strengthener  of  every  one's 
weakness ;  to  do  this,  as  much  as  in  me  lies,  is 
my  aim    and   object."     "  He   said   this   with  a 
smile,"  she  adds,  "  and,  oh !    the  peace  in  his 
face ;  it  seemed  as  if  nothing  could  shake  it  l" 

II.  And  though  that  is  but  sixteen  years  ago, 
even  since  then  two  more  heroic  souls  have 
joined  that  glorious  army  of  martyrs— David 
Livingstone  and  Coleridge  Patteson.  Five  years 
ago,  on  May  i,   1873,  David   Livingstone,  the 


1 84 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,        [serm.  v. 


great  pioneer,  the  great  foe  of  the  slave-trade, 
breathed  his  last  in  the  sultry  wastes  of  Central 
Africa,  in  his  hut  at  Ulala,  with  no  white  man 
near, — no  love  of  wife  or  sister  to  cool  his 
fevered  forehead  ;  no  hand  of  son  or  brother 
to  close  his  glazing  eyes.  And  faithful  to  the 
very  last  to  that  which  had  been  the  great  work 
of  his  life,  he  wrote,  as  the  last  words  of  his 
journal,  almost  with  his  dying  hand,  "  All  I  can 
add  in  my  solitude  is,  may  Heaven's  rich  bless- 
ing come  down  on  every  one  .  .  .  who  will  help 
to  heal  this  open  sore  of  the  world. "  ^  And 
seven  years  ago  Coleridge  Patteson,  noble  Cole- 
ridge Patteson,  the  pure-hearted,  gallant,  modest 
Eton  boy,  who  gave  up  every  prospect  in  Eng- 
land to  labour  amid  the  Pacific  savages ;— -who 
had  been  obliged  to  be  ready  many  a  time  to 
plunge  in  the  waters  that  break  among  those  coral 
reefs,  "  amid  sharks,  and  devilfish,  and  stincrino- 
jellies,"  to  escape  the  flight  of  poisoned  arrows, 
of  which  the  slightest  graze  meant  horrid  death — 

*  These  lines  are  recorded  on  his  gravestone  in  the  nave  of 
Westminster  Abbey. 


SERM.  v.]        THE  MISSIONARIES. 


185 


he  too  in  that  high  service  died  by  the  clubs  of 
savages  whom  he  had  often  risked  his  life  to 
save;  died,  as  since  then  the  brave  and  gentle 
Commodore  Goodenough  died,  at  the  hands  of 
savages  exasperated  by  the  accursed  man-steal- 
in"^  wickedness  of  white  men  who  desecrate  the 
English  name  ;  and  they  laid  the  young  English 
martyr  Bishop  in  an  open  boat  to  float  aw^ay 
over  the  bright  blue  wat-ers,  with  his  hands, 
crossed  as  if  in  prayer,  and  a  palm-branch  on 
his  breast. 

12.  There  are  many,  many  lessons,  my  bre- 
thren, on  which  I  have  not  even  touched,  which 
yet  spring  immediately  from  the  contemplation 
of  these  noble  and  saintly  lives  during  nineteen 
centuries  at  which,  by  the  good  hand  of  God  upon 
us,  we  have,  on  these  five  Thursdays  together 
glanced  ; — lessons     of    self-denial,     lessons     of 
patience,    lessons    of    self-conquest,    lessons    of 
mastery  over  the  world  in  the  might  of  unarmed 
holiness.     But  I  must  say  one  word  of  one  truth 
deeply  needed  now — the  lesson  of  the  essential 
unity  of  the  faith  in  men  as  unlike  each  other 


i86 


SAINTLY  WORKERS,         [sfrm.  v. 


as  the  crusading  warrior  king  and  the  consump- 
tive puritan  clergyman;  as  unlike  as  Benedict 
the  monk  and  Brainerd  the  Calvinist ;  as  unlike 
as  the  highborn  Jesuit,  St.  Francis  Xavier,  and 
the  unsuccessful  cobbler,  William  Carey ;  as 
unlike  as  the  poetic  Heber  in  his  lawn  sleeves, 
and  the  squalid  St.  Antony  in  his  sheepskin 
cloak.  Yet  all  these,  so  utterly  unlike  each 
other  in  particular  beliefs,  in  outward  practices — 
all  these,  though  some  of  them,  had  they  lived 
at  the  same  period,  would  have  consigned  one 
another  to  the  thumbscrew  and  the  stake,  were 
yet  all  like  each  other,  for  they  were  all  like 
their  common  Lord.  Each  of  them  was  a 
bright  planet  in  the  firmanent  of  human  good- 
ness, sparkling  with  a  different  lustre,  but  each 
irradiated  by  one  common  sun.  Adoniram 
Judson,  the  American  missionary,  tells  us  how 
God  had  never  refused  him  one  fervent  prayer, 
in  almost  the  same  words  as  St.  Dominic  the 
mediaeval  Spaniard  ;  and  Henry  Martyn  writes 
of  happiness,  in  the  midst  of  disease  and  failure, 
in  the  same  tone  as  Francis  Xavier  and  Henri 


'\ 


\\ 


% 


>' 


H 


SERM.  V.J        2V/£  MISSIONARIES. 


187 


Lacordaire.     Yes,  all  these  were  one — all  one 
in  Christ ;  the  hermit,  the  monk,  the  papist,  the 
fanatic,  the  mendicant,  the  Jesuit,  the  inquisitor, 
had  not  only  one  Lord,  one  baptism,  one  God 
and  Father  of  them  all,  who  was  above  all,  and 
through  all,  and  in  them  all,  but  even  essentially 
one  faith  with  the  English  athlete,  and  the  stern 
Calvinist,  and  the  American  puritan,   and  the 
passionate  reformer.     Faith — faith  in  the  unseen 
— faith  in  God,  faith  in  Christ,  and  that   faith 
leading  to  infinite  self-denial,  and  working  by 
incessant  love,  that  was  the  secret  of  their  com- 
mon holiness,  that  is  the  lesson  of  their  common 
example.     Alas    for  the   mutual   hatreds,   and 
miserable   feuds,  in  the  little  lives  of  men  !  St. 
Carlo  Borromeo,  sweeping  to  the  cathedral  at 
Milan  in  grand  procession,  in  the  splendid  robe 
of  a   cardinal,    but   by   the   trickling   drops   of 
blood  on  the  marble  pavement  revealing,  against 
his  will,  that  his  feet  were  bare  over  the  sharp 
flints  beneath  his  scarlet  robe,  would  have  con- 
signed an  Eliot  or  Carey  to  the  dungeon  or  the 
stake.     Henry  Martyn  or  John  Williams  would 


it 


i88 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.         [serm.  v. 


have  regarded  as  votaries  of  the  Beast  and  the 
False  Prophet,  with  more  of  religious  aversion 
than  of  Miltonic   scorn,  those    *'  Eremites  and 
Friars,  white,    black,    and  grey,   with  all  their 
trumpery,"  whom  our  great  poet  consigns,  with 
embryos   and  idiots,  to  the  paradise   of  fools. 
But  the  thoughts  of  God  are  higher  than   men, 
and  the  ways  of  God  are  juster.     For  the  saints 
who  hate  each  other,  who  persecute  each  other, 
who  denounce  each  other  as  heretics,  who  attri- 
bute to  each  other  the  worst  motives,  who  call 
down   on   each    other   the   indignation  of  God 
and  man,  Heaven  opens  its  pitying  harmonious 
doors;  and  these  holders  of  mutually  destructive 
opinions  shall,  with  a  smile  at  the  old  leaven 
of  their  anathematising  ignorance,  and  a  sigh, 
if  there  be  sighs  in  heaven,  for  the  aching  hearts 
they  caused  each  other  on  earth— shall  in  the 
light  of  their  Fathers  countenance  "clasp  inse- 
parable hands  in  joy  and  bliss  in  over  measure, 
for  ever."     Yes,  Heaven,  we  hope,  will  have  its 
healing  peace  for  the  bitter  dissensions  even  of 
earth's  saints. 


SERM.  v.]        THE  MISSIONARIES, 


189 


"O  shame  to  men!  devil  with  devil  damn'd 
Firm  concord  holds  ;  men  only  disagree 
Of  creatures  rational,  though  under  hope 
Of  heavenly  grace ;  and,  God  proclaiming  peace, 
Yet  live  in  hatred,  enmity,  and  strife, 
As  if  (which  might  induce  us  to  accord) 
Man  had  not  hellish  foes  enow  besides, 
That,  day  and  night,  for  his  destruction  wait ! " 

But  if  peace  cannot  be  between  the  children 
of  God  on  earth;  if  men,  in  their  assumed  in- 
fallibility, will  not  tolerate  one  another's  inevit- 
ably divergent  opinions ;  let  us,  at  least,  try  to 
walk  by  faith.  For  all  these  died  in  the  faith. 
It  was  by  faith  that  Ignatius  faced  the  lions ; 
by  faith  that  Polycarp  stood  unflinching  in  the 
flame;  by  faith  Antony  lived  his  twenty  years 
in  the  mountain  cell  ;  by  faith  Benedict  rolled 
his  naked  body  among  the  thorns  to  subdue 
the  lusts  of  the  flesh;  by  faith  Fra  Angelica 
despised  the  honours  of  the  world ;  by  faith 
Francis  reproduced  on  the  Umbrian  hills  the 
life  of  Christ ;  by  faith  St.  Coliiniban  faced  the 
fierce  tyranny  of  Burgundian  kings  ;  by  faith 
St,  Boniface  hewed  down  the  idol  oak  ;  by  faith 


V 


IQO 


SAINTLY  WORKERS.         [serm.  v. 


SERM.  v.]        THE  MISSIONARIES. 


191 


Eliot,  and  Judsojt,  and  Marsden,  and  Heber, 
and  Mackenzie,  and  Coleridge  Pat teson,dind  Alien 
Gardiner,  and  David  Livingstone  civilised  the 
Indians,  converted  the  heathen,  put  down  the 
slave-trade,  showed  us  how  to  do,  and  dare,  and 
die  in  their  Master's  cause  ;  and  even  so  by  faith 
we  too,  God  helping  us,  may  learn  from  the 
Martyrs  that  better  is  fearful  death  than  shamed 
life ;  from  the  Hermits  that  the  life  is  more  than 
meat ;  from  the  Monks  the  sacredness  of  poverty, 
chastity,  and  obedience ;  from  the  Early  Fran- 
ciscans contempt  of  gold  ;  from  the  Alissionaries 
devotion  to  God's  other  sheep  which  are  not  of 
this  flock.  All  these  died  in  the  faith,  having 
both  received  the  promises,  in  part,  on  earth, 
and  seen  them  afar  off  in  heaven.  Let  us 
with  them  follow  Christ  our  common  Lord.  As 
one  of  themselves,  even,  a  poet  of  their  own 
has  written — 

"They  faced  the  tyrant's  brandished  steel. 
The  lion's  gory  mane, 
They  bowed  their  necks,  the  death  to  feel; 
Who  follows  in  their  train? 


**  A  noble  Army,  men  and  boys, 
The  matron  and  the  maid, 
Around  the  Saviour's  throne  rejoice, 
In  robes  of  light  arrayed. 

**  They  climbed  the  steep  ascent  of  heaven. 
Mid  peril,  toil,  and  pain, 
Oh  God,  to  us  may  grace  be  given. 
To  follow  in  their  train." 


'\J 


APPENDIX. 


. 


I 


I  PRINT  the  following  simple  rules,  drawn  up  to  help  the 
younger  members  of  my  congregation  in  the  effort  to  live  a 
Christian  life,  because  I  have  been  asked  for  them  by  several 
clergymen  who  thought  that  they  might  be  usefid  in  other 
parishes. 

RULES  OF  THE  ST.  MARGARET'S  SOCIETY 
OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 


"Not  as  though  I  had  already  attained,  either  were  already 
perfect,  but  I  follow  after."— Phil.  III.  12. 


RULES. 

( To  he  kept  with  sincere  intention^  God  helping.) 

I. — Never  neglect  yoiu:  Prayers,  morning  or  evening. 

2.  -  Examine  yourself  carefully  as  to  your  thoughts  and 
manner  of  life,  at  all  events  once  in  the  week. 

3.  —Read  every  day,  and  \hink  over,  at  least  a  few  verses  of 
the  Bible :  before  you  begin,  ask  God  to  bless  what  you  are 
about  to  read. 

O   2 


196 


4. — Come  to  Church  every  Sunday,  unless  prevented  by  some 
good  reason,  and  at  other  times  as  you  have  opportunity.  Take 
care  not  to  be  late :  kneel  when  you  ought,  and  join  heartily  in 
the  Service. 

5. — Come  to  Holy  Communion,  bearing  in  mind  your  Lord's 
command,  "Do  this  in  remembrance  of  Me." 

6. — Always  prepare  for  Holy  Communion  by  self-examination^ 
resolution,  and  prayer. 

7. — Try  to  think  and  speak  kindly  of  every  one;  "Honour 
all  men." 

8. — Watch  and  pray  against  all  temptations  to  definite  evil. 
Keep  from  all  places  and  company  in  which  you  are  likely  to  be 
tempted. 

9. — Try  to  do  some  special  work  for  GoD  in  His  Church. 


Tvas  ad?nitted  a  Member  of  this  Society 


on. 


.18 


' 


INDEX. 


I 

V 


. 


^ 


INDEX. 


A. 

Alexandria,    story  of  Antony 

and  the  currier  of,   63,  64  ; 

of    Macarius  and   the   two 

women  of,  64 
American  pilot,  anecdote  of  a 

heroic,  26 
Appendix,  195 


B. 

Basil,  quotation  from,  35 
Benedict  of   Anianum,  quota- 
tion from,  71 
Berengar,  quotation  from,  71 
Bonaventura,   quotation  from, 

118,  149 
Borromec,      Cardinal     Carlo, 

austerities     and      mistaken 

zeal  of,  187 
Bossuet,  quotation  from,  118 
Braincrd,  David,  his  life  among 

the  savages,  180 
Brown,  J.  Baldwin,  quotation 

from,  143,  144 
Buffs,  anecdote  of  the  courage 

of  a  private  of  the,  26,  27. 
Burns,  quotation  from,  8 
Byron,    quotation     from     his 

ChilJc  Haroliij  76,  163 


c. 

Catacombs    of     Rome,    their 

witness  to  the  courage  and 

resignation     of     the     early 

Christians,  15,  16 
Chrysostom,    quotation    from, 

72 
Cotton,      Bishop,     accidental 

death  of,  181 
Cowper,    quotation   from   the 

Task  of,  38,  180 
Christian    Progress,    rules    of 

the  St.  Margaret's   Society 

of,  19s 


D. 

Dante,  quotation  from  the 
Jvferno  of,  describing  the 
punishment  of  hypocrites, 
79  n  ;  other  quotations,  in, 
117,  119,  123  «,  125  «, 
142  n 

Desert  Fathers,  contrast  of  the 
life  of  the,  with  that  of  the 
men    of    the    present    day, 

Doyle,  Sir  F.  H.,  quotation 
from,  27 


'\ 


200 


INDEX. 


£. 

Easter,  St.  Columban's  deliv- 
erance to  the  French  bishops 
on  the  time  of  observing, 
i6i 

Elijah,  a  hermit,  40,  41 

Eliot,  John,  Apostle  of  the 
Red  Indian',  180 

Ephrem  the  Syrian,  who  pro- 
tested against  slavery,  a 
hermit,  61,  62 


F. 

Faith,  the  stimulus  of  all 
saintly  workers,  187  ;  ex- 
amples of  its  power  in  the 
lives  of  martyrs,  monks,  and 
missionaries,  187 — 191 

Foisset,  quotation  from,  71 

Fra  Angelico  of  Fiesole,  his 
character  and  angelic  spirit, 
97 — 100 

FrAiNCISCANS,  the  early,  122  ; 
anecdote  of  St.    Thomas  of 
Aquinum   and   Pope   Inno- 
cent IV.,  122  ;  influence  of 
St.    Dominic  of  Spain  and 
St.   Francis  of  Assissi    on 
the  Church  and  the  World, 
122,  123  ;  their  sincerity  and 
mistaken     zeal,     124 — 1 27  ; 
aim  of  St.  Francis,  and  how 
far  he  succeeded,  127 — 130  ; 
interview  of  St.  Francis  with 
Pope   Innocent    III.,    131  ; 
institutirai  of  the  order,  132  ; 
and  its  rapid  spread,    133  ; 
some  incidents  in  the  life  of 
St.   Francis,  and  what  they 
teach,    134 — 141  ;  his  latter 
days  and  death,    142,  143  ; 


anecdotes  of  his  life,  and  the 
lessons  to  be  learned  from 
it,  143—153 

G. 

Gardiner,  Allen,  the  mis- 
sionary, his  death  by  starva- 
tion, and  last  words,  183 

Goodenough,  Commodore, 
death  of,  185 

Gregory  the  Great,  spirit  mani- 
fested by,  97  ;  despatches 
Augustine  to  convert  the 
Saxons,  168 

Griffiths,  Rev.  \V.,  quotation 
from,  28 

Gul.  de  Sto.  Amore,  quotation 
from,  118 


H. 

Heber,  Bishop  Reginald,  his 
work  in  India,  181 

Henry  VIII.,  dissolution  of 
the  monasteries  by,  far  from 
being  an  unmixed  evil,  77 

Hermits,  the,  37  ;  yearning  in 
certain  natures  for  with- 
drawal from  the  world,  37, 
38;  life  of  the  Desert  Fathers, 
39  ;  comparison  of  the  life 
of  to-day  with  that  of  the 
"sainted  eremites,"  40,41  ; 
St.  Antony,  his  birth  and 
early  life,  42  ;  struck  by  the 
words  of  Christ, — "If  thou 
wilt  be  perfect,"  &c., — he 
sells  all  that  he  has  and  retires 
to  the  desert,  42  ;  his  spiritual 
struggles  and  fights  with  evil 
spirits  there,  43 — 45 ;  his 
death,  46  ;  and  the  moral  of 


I 


INDEX. 


201 


his  life,  47—49 ;  recom- 
penccs  of  such  a  life,  50 — 
56  ;  St.  Macarius  and  the 
cluster  of  grapes,  56,  57 ; 
each  age  has  its  own  types 
of  saintliness,  58  ;  usefulness 
of  the  life  of  the  hermits  to 
their  own  days,  59,  60  ;  to 
the  age  which  followed,  60 
— 62  J  and  for  all  time,  62 
-67 

Howard,  John,  self-sacrifice  of, 
on  behalf  of  the  prisoner 
and  the  captive,  23,  24 

JIuss,  witnesseth  for  Christ  by 
his  death,  19 


I. 


Innocent  IV.,  Pope,  anecdote 
of,  and  Thomas  Aquinum, 
121 

Innocents,  the  Holy,  com- 
memoration day  and  martyr- 
dom of,  6 


J. 


James      the    Lord's    brother, 

death  of,  1 1 
James    the  son  of    Zebedee, 

death  of,  1 1 
John  the  Baptist  a  hermit,  41 
Jovinian,  quotation  from,  72 
Judson,   Adoniram,   in  a  Bur- 
mese prison,   181  ;   his  suc- 
cess in  prayer,  186 


K. 

Keble,  quotation  from,  67 
Kempis,  Thomas  d,  quotations 
from,  71,  72 


Kingdom  of  God,  St.  Hugo  of 
Avalon's  saying  regarding 
the  nature  of,  90 

Kingsley,  quotation  from  The 
Saints^  Tragedy  oi^  73,  74 


L. 

Lacordaire,  Henri,  a  Domini- 
can  monk,  his  influence  on 
his  country  and  in  the  Church 
100,  loi  ;  his  self-denial, 
and  holy  resignation  to  a 
life  of  austerity  at  the 
monastery  of  La  Quercia, 
102—106. 
Landor,    W.      S.,     quotation 

from,  35 
La  Quercia,  account  of  Lacor- 
daire's    withdrawal    to    the 
monastery  of,  103 
VAvenir     newspaper,      con- 
demned by  the  Pope,  loi 
Leibnitz,  quotation  from,  as  to 
the  usefulness  of  the  Mendi- 
cant Orders,  84 
Livingstone,  David,   the  Afri. 
can  missionary  explorer,  his 
opinion      of     the     ancient 
monks,     164  ;     his     lonely 
death    at    Ulala,    and    last 
entry  in  his  journal,  184 
Lucan,  quotation  from,  118 
Lulli,     Raymond,      quotation 
from,   71  ;    a  missionary  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  174; 
his      conversion,       labours 
among  Saracens,  Jews,  and 
Mohammedans,    and  death, 

174,  175 
Luther's  conflict  to  keep  pure 
the  faith,  19 


] 


202 


INDEX. 


M. 

Mackenzie,     Bishop    Charles, 
his   self-sacrifice   and  death 
amid    the    swamps    of   the 
Zambesi,  183 
Maclear,  quotation  from,  l6l 
Marsden,  Samuel,  the  friend  of 

the  Maories,  181 
Martyn,  Henry,  his  labours  at 
Cawnpore,  and  lonely  death 
at  Tocati,  181,  186 
Martyrs,  the,  5 ;  St.  Stephen, 
St.    John    the    Evangelist, 
and    the    Holy    Innocents, 
6;  martyr  originally  meant 
witness,  afterwards  witness 
to    Christ    by    death,     7; 
courage   the    chief   quality 
displayed   by  St.   Stephen, 
8;    he    saw    deeper    mto 
Christianity  than  any  of  his 
brethren,  9  ;  his  enthusiasm 
and    death,    10;    sufferings 
and  death  of  the  apostles, 
1 1  ;  and  of  the  early  Chris- 
tians,  12,   13;  testimony  of 
St.  Ignatius  and  TertuUian 
to   their    courage    and   en- 
durance,    13—15;    witness 
of  the  catacombs,   15,   16  ; 
what  the  world  has  gamed 
from  the  death  of  the  mar- 
tyrs,  16,   17  ;  the  blood  of 
martyrs    the   seed    of    the 
Church,     18  ;     Savonarola, 
Huss  Luther,  Latimer,  and 
Ridley,  19  ;  ennobling  effect 
of    their   examples   on    the 
world,  20,  21  ;  m  patriotism 
—the  battle  of  Sempach— 
22  ;  in  individual  self-sacri- 
fice— the     obscure     monk, 
Telemachus,  denouncing  the 


butcheries    of    the    amphi- 
theatre, 23  ;  in  philanthropy 
—Wilber force    fighting  the 
battle    of     the    slave,    and 
Howard    that    of    the    im- 
prisoned,   23;    and   in    in- 
numerable instances  in  our 
own  day  of   courage,   self- 
denial,    and    endurance    in 
the    noblest    of    efforts    on 
behalf  of  mankind,  26 — 31 
Mazzini,  saying  of,  regarding 
the    angels    of    martyrdom 
and  victory,  18 
Milton,  quotation  from  Comus, 
35  ;  from  Paradise  Los/,  189 
Missionaries,      the,      159; 
object    of    these    lectures, 
159,     i6o ;     reply    of    St. 
Columban    to    the    French 
Bishops  as  to  the  time  of 
observing  Easter,   l6l  ;  the 
age      of     Martyrdom,      of 
Hermits,    of    Monasticism, 
is  past,  that  of  Missionaries 
is  come,  162—164;  mission- 
aries   have    continued    un- 
broken   from    the   time    of 
Christ  till  now,   164,    165  ; 
St.  Paul,   a  pattern  of  the 
earliest  and  the  noblest,  1 65, 
166;    his  life  a  type  of  all 
true  missionary  live^,   167  ; 
early  missionaries,  Ulphilas, 
Columba,  Columbanus, 

Augustine,  Willibrod,  and 
the  work  they  did,  168, 
169  ;  sketch  of  the  life  of 
St.  Columban,  170—172  ; 
and  of  St.  Boniface,  172, 
173  ;  these  two  specimens 
of  the  earliest  European 
missionaries,  174;  ^^Y' 
mond    Lulli,   a    missionary 


INDEX, 


203 


ot    the  thirteenth  century, 
I74»      175  ;      ^"^     Francis 
Xavier,    the   noblest  figure 
of    the    sixteenth    century, 
175  ;    sketch    of   his    early 
life,  conversion,  works,  and 
death,  175—179;  the  labours 
of    the   Moravian    mission- 
aries,  of    Eliot,     Brainerd, 
Schwartz,   Martin,    180;  of 
Judson,  Ileber,  Cotton,  and 
Marsden,  181 ;  missionaries 
who      have      earned      the 
martyr's    crown — Williams, 
Gardiner,   Mackenzie,    Liv- 
ingstone, and  Patteson,  182 
— 185  ;    the  lessons  to    be 
learned  from  their  lives  of 
patience,  faith,  self-sacrifice, 
185 — 187  ;  the  blindness  of 
some — the  mistaken  zeal  of 
others,  187,  1 88;  the  strong, 
unflinching  faith  of  all,  189 
—191 
Monks,  the,  73,  74;  lessons 
taught   by  their  lives,    75  ; 
monasticism  and  its  effects 
on  the  world,  76—80  ;   its 
origin,    81,   82;    and  what 
it  did  for  the  Church  and 
civilisation,    83,    84  ;      St. 
Benedict    of     Nursia    gave 
monasticism     its    best    and 
most  permanent  form,  84  ; 
his  life,  and  its  influence  on 
his  contemporaries,  84 — 86  ; 
self-abnegation  the  key-note 
of  the  immortal  rule  of  the 
Benedictines,  86,  87  ;   what 
the  order  did  for  the  world, 
87—89  ;  the  good  that  may 
be  got    from   copying    the 
best     features    of     monas- 
ticism, 89—94 ;  and  the  in- 


spiriting effect  upon  us  of 
studying    the   lives   of    St. 
Anselm,  95  ;    St.   Edmund 
of  Canterbury,  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas,    St.   Bonaventura, 
St.     Bernardin     of     Siena, 
Gregory  the  Great,  96  ;  St. 
Bernard  of   Clairvaux,    and 
the  monk  of  San  Marco  — 
Fra    Angelico,    97  —  100  ; 
sketch  of  a  modern  Domi- 
nican monk — Henri  Lacor- 
daire— and  the  lesson  to  be 
learned  from  his  life,  100  — 
106 ;     results     of     monas- 
ticism,   106,  107  ;  incidents 
in  the  lives  of  some  of  the 
saintly  workers,    108 — iii  ; 
and  what  they  are  capable 
of     teaching,      112,      113; 
Livingstone's  opinion  of  the 
ancient  monks,  164 

Montalembert,  quotation  from 
Monks  of  the  fVesif  81  n,  et 
seq. 

Moravian  missionaries,  their 
work  in  Greenland,  180 

Myers,  quotation  from,  157 

N. 

Nero's  Golden  House,  in  ; 
his  treatment  of  the  early 
Christians,  ib. 

O.       . 

Oliphant,  Mrs.,  quotations 
from,  146  et  seq, 

P. 

Patteson,  Coleridge,  his  mis- 
sionary labours  in  Melane- 
sia, 184;  and  death,  185 


\ 


*i3 


204 


INDEX. 


Persius,  quotation  from,  ii8 
Plotinus,  quotation  from,  35 
PoUok,  quotation  from,  117 
Praed,  quotations  from,  182 
Prayer,  anecdote  of  a  soldier 
who  would  not  be  laughed 
out  of  a  habit  of,  28,  29 


R. 

Ravignan,     quotation     from, 

1  35 

Rhoades,  J.,  quotation  from, 

150 
Russian  serf,  anecdote  of  the, 

who   sacrificed    his    life   to 

save  his  master's  children. 

26 


S. 


St.  Anselm,  the  last  hours  of, 

95»  96 
St.  Antony,  his  birth,  conver- 
sion,   and    self-denial,    42  ; 
his  strivings   after  a   holier 
^i^e,  43;    his  retirement  to 
the    desert,    and    incessant 
spiritual  conflicts  there,  45, 
46,  52—55  ;  his  death,  46, 
47;    and  the  moral  of  his 
life,  47—62 

St.  Athanasius  finds  a  refuge 
with  the  hermits,  writes  the 
life  of  St.  Antony,  and  in- 
herits his  sheep -skin  cloak. 
60,  61 

St.  Augustine,  his  labours  in 
England,  168,  169 

St.  Basil  a  hermit,  61  ;  his 
boldness  to  the  Emperor 
Valens,  6i 


St.   Benedict  of    Nursia,    the 
real  creator  of  monasticism, 
84 ;  his  birth  and  early  aus- 
terities, 84,  85  ;  his  marvel- 
lous  vision,    and   interview 
with  Totila  the  Goth,   '^d  ; 
his   immortal    rule    of    the 
Benedictines,     and    its     in- 
fluence on  monasticism,  86 
—89  ;  social  life  of  a  Bene- 
dictine monastery,  ^  ;    ex- 
tract  from  the  rule   of,  93  ; 
his  bed  of  briers,   108,   109  ; 
the  wisest  of  monastic  foun- 
ders, 126 
St.    Bernard,    saying    of,    91; 
his    courageous  spirit,    97  ; 
horrified  at  a  bad  impulse,' 
rushes  neck  deep  into  an  icy 
pool,  109 

St.  Bernardin  of  Siena,  parity 
of,  26  >  V      y 

St.    Bonaventura,   humility  of, 
96  ;  quotation  from,  149 

St.  Boniface,  a  native  of 
Devonshire,  burning  with 
desire  to  serve  God,  pro- 
ceeds to  Germany  to  convert 
the  heathen,  172;  legend  of 
Thors  oak,  172,  173;  his 
success— made  Archbishop 
of  Mainz— his  death,  177. 
174  '^' 

St.  Columban's  deliverance  to 
the  French  bishops  on  the 
time  of  observing  Easter 
161  ;  an  Irish  monk,  he 
sails  for  France  with  twelve 
companions  and  settles  in 
the  Vosges,  170;  driven 
thence  by  persecution,  he 
settles  on  the  Lake  of 
Zurich,  171;  his  labours 
there,  168,  171 


INDEX, 


205 


S} 


St.  Dominic  of  Spain, 
founder  of  the  order  of  the 
Preaching  Friars,  and  crea- 
tor of  the  Inquisition,  his 
gloomy  and  ferocious  charac- 
ter, 122 — 126 

St.  Edmund  of  Canterbury  at 
Oxford,  96 

St.  Elizabeth  of  Hungary,  a 
member  of  the  order  of  Ter- 
tiaries  143 

St.  Francis  of  Assissi,  sayings 
of,  126  ;  his  early  life  and 
strivings  after  holiness  among 
the  hills  and  villages  of  Um- 
bria,  127;  answer  to  Fra 
Masseo's  question — "Why 
to  thee?"  129  ;  does  more 
for  the  Church  than  the 
greatest  Pontiff,  130 ;  his 
interview  with  Innocent 
HI.,  131  ;  the  Pope's  two 
dreams,  132 ;  he  sanctions 
the  organisation  of  the  Less- 
er Brothers,  the  lowest  and 
humblest,  but  destined  to 
become  the  most  powerful 
order  of  the  Church,  132; 
the  rapid  success  of  the 
order,  133  ;  sketch  of  the 
life,  visions,  and  spiritual 
conflicts  of  St.  Francis, 
134, — 143  ;  founds  the  order 
of  the  Poor  Ladies  of 
Clare,  and  the  order  of 
the  Tertiaries,  141  ;  re- 
ceives on  Monte  Alverno 
the  stigmata,  142  ;  his 
death,  143  ;  an  instance  of 
the  tnith,  that  the  grand- 
est revolutions  of  the  uni- 
verse have  been  accom- 
plished by  enthusiasts,  143, 
144  ;  lessons  of  his  life,  143 


— 14S  ;  and  some  of  his  say- 
ings, 145—153 

St.  Gregory  of  Nazianzus  a 
hermit,  61 

St.  Hugo  of  Avalon's  saying 
regarding  the  kingdom  of 
God,  90  ;  his  terrific  spirit- 
ual conflicts,  and  ultimate 
triumph,  no 

St.  Ignatius,  carried  through 
the  cities  of  Asia  in  chains, 
and  thrown  to  the  wild 
beasts  in  the  amphitheatre  at 
Rome,  II,  12;  his  assertion 
of  his  faith,  13. 

St.  Jerome,  the  translator  of 
the  Bible  into  Latin,  a  her- 
mit, 61  ;  austerities  of,  in 
his  rocky  cell  at  Bethlehem, 
108 

St.  John  the  Evangelist,  com- 
memoration day,  and  legend 
of,  6 

St.  Louis  of  France,  a  member 
of  the  order  of  Tertiaries, 

143 

St.  Macarms,  anecdote  of,  and 
a  cluster  of  fresh  ripe  grapes, 
56,  57  ;  his  inferiority  to  the 
two  women  of  Alexandria,  64 

St.  >.'ilus,  prayer  and  vision 
of,  109,  no 

St.  Paul,  supposed  to  have 
been  beheaded  on  the  Ap- 
pian  Way,  11;  type  and 
model  of  all  missionaries, 
165  ;  his  perils  and  escapes 
— ^his  trials  and  triumphs, 
165,  166  ;  his  final  doom, 
167  ;  the  innumerable 
shrines  deilicated  to  his 
memory,  167 

St.  Peter,  said  to  have  died 
in  the  amphitheatre,  1 1 


i 


:       } 


'I 


2o6 


INDEX, 


St.  Polycarp,  incident  at  the 
death  of,  I2 

St.  Perpetua,  her  youth,  cour- 
age, and  faith,  12,  13 

St.  Stephen,  commemoration 
day  of,  6 ;  nature  of  the 
courage  displayed  by,  8  ; 
saw  deeper  into  Christianity 
than  any  of  his  brethren,  9  ; 
confronts  his  enemies,  and 
dies  with  unflinching  cour- 
age, 10,  II 

St.  Stephen,  Church  of,  at 
Rome,  reflections  originated 
by  a  visit  to,  16 — 19 

Saints,  terrible  spiritual  con- 
flicts of  the,  108 

St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  daily 
prayer  of,  96  ;  anecdote 
of,  and  Pope  Innocent  IV., 
121 

Savonarola,  witness  of,  to  the 
faith,  19 

Schwartz,  a  saintly  worker, 
180 

Sempach,  heroic  self-sacrifice 
of  Arnold  of  Winkelried 
at  the  battle  of,  22 

Serapion,  saying  of  the  her- 
mit, 56 

Shakspere,     quotation    from, 

152 

Shelley,  quotation  from,  66 

Soldier,  anecdote  of  a,  who 
would  not  be  laughed  out 
of  the  practice  of  praying, 
28,  29 

Stephen,  Sir  James,  quotation 
from  his  Essays,  179 

**  Surrender  of  St.  Andrew's 
Priory,  Northampton," quo- 
tation from,  78  «. 

"Surrender  of  Warden  and 
Friars    of    St.    Francis    in 


Stamford,"  quotation  from, 
72 
Sutherland,      Alexander,       a 
Scotch  boy,  anecdote  of  the 
heroic  courage  of,  27,  28 


T. 

Telemachus,  the  monk,  his 
self -sacrifice  in  the  amphi- 
theatre at  Rome,  23 ;  a 
hermit,  61 

Tennyson,  quotation  from,  ix. 
66 

Tertullian  glories  in  the 
ignominious  names  applied 
to  the  early  Christians,  14 

Theodoret,  quotation  from,  ix. 

Thor'soak,  legend  of,  172, 173 


U. 

Ulphilas,   the  apostle  of  the 
Goths,  168 

V. 

Voltaire's  opinion  of  monas- 
ticism,  80 


W. 

Wilberforce,  \Villiam,  fights 
the  battle  of  the  slave  in 
the  IIou<e  of  Commons,  23 

Williams,  John,  the  mission- 
ary, murdered  at  Erromango, 
182 

Winkelried,  Arnold  of,  heroic 
self-sacrifice  of,  at  the  battle 

•   of  Sempach,  22 


INDEX, 


207 


X. 

Xavier,  Francis,  the  mission- 
ary of  the  sixteenth  centur}', 
175 ;  of  noble  birth,  and 
educated  at  the  University 
of  Paris,  he  is  converted  by 
Ignatius  Loyola,  175,  176; 
proceeds  as  a  missionary 
from  Portu'Tal  to  Goa,  176  ; 
his  increasing  labours  and 
marvellous  success  in  the 
East,  177,  178;  his  lonely 
and  agonising  death  on  the 


naked  beach  in  China,  179  ; 
his  last  words,  179 


Y. 

Yvo    de    Chartres,  quotation 
from,  35 


Z. 

Zinzendorf,    Count,    anecdote 
of,  when  at  school,  94 


THE  END. 


CO 


LUMBIA  UNIVERS 


TY 


0032249837 


